Quick match settings poll

anoek · December 16, 2024, 8:05pm

Hello OGS!

The new Play page and quick match system has been up for a few weeks now and now that most of you have had a chance to use it we’d love some feedback, particularly around the time settings. Below the polls there are some stats from the past couple of weeks for those that are interested.

The Fischer clock

Should we keep the Fischer clock options on the auto match portion of the Play page? (These are the options on the left, such as 30s+3s, 5m+5s, etc.). This only applies to live games, not correspondence games which will definitely stay Fischer.)

Keep the Fischer clock options
Remove the Fischer clock options

0 voters

Blitz settings (the fastest clock settings)

Is the 30+3s fischer blitz setting too fast?

Yes 30+3s is too fast
No it’s not too fast

0 voters

Is the 30+5x10s byo-yomi blitz setting too fast?

Yes 30+5x10s is too fast
No it’s not too fast

0 voters

Overall blitz settings:

The blitz settings are good
I would like to play blitz games, but the options are too fast
I’m not interested in blitz games

0 voters

Rapid Fischer clock settings (the middle clock settings)

The rapid +5s Fischer clock settings are good
I want to play with a Fischer clock, but the 5 second increment is too fast
I prefer to play with using a byo-yomi clock.

0 voters

Rapid byo-yomi clock settings

The 5x30s byo-yomi overtime is good for the rapid clock setting
I would prefer a faster byo-yomi clock for the rapid clock setting for all board sizes
I would prefer a faster byo-yomi clock for 9x9 but not for 19x19

0 voters

Long Fischer clock settings

The long +10s Fischer clock settings are good
I want to play with a Fischer clock, but the 10 second increment is too fast
I prefer to play with using a byo-yomi clock.

0 voters

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to vote!

Quick match game statistics from December

Total quick match games: 49324

    Blitz: 2.0%
    Rapid: 59.3%
    Long: 38.4%

    9x9:  32.7%
    13x13:  10.7%
    19x19: 56.4%

It should be noted that the default option is 9x9 rapid, however the ~60/40 split between rapid and live games is fairly consistent in 19x19 as well, so the new rapid settings seem popular.

Blitz games seem very unpopular though. I’m hoping the poll helps us figure out if the proposed times are simply too fast, or if the whole category is undesired.

Fischer / byo-yomi preference

Rapid:
  9x9: 
    Fischer: 73.3%
    Byo-yomi: 26.7%

  19x19:
    Fischer: 57.4%
    Byo-yomi: 42.6%
        
Long:
  9x9: 
    Fischer: 29.6%
    Byo-yomi: 70.7%
  
  19x19:
    Fischer: 25.2%
    Byo-yomi: 74.8%

Since 9x9 rapid Fischer is the default setting, we expect a significant bias towards Fischer for the rapid category in general, particularly the 9x9 rapid category. In this regard long 19x19 games are probably the most interesting in terms of trying to figure out how the general player pool is feeling about byo-yomi vs Fischer. Given byo-yomi is the incumbent time control system, the fact that we see ~25% games being played under the Fischer clock is a pretty strong signal that there is some significant interest in playing with a Fischer clock.

Game durations & timeout rate

Blitz:

size	time_control	clock	duration	timeout_rate	samples
9x9	fischer	30s + 3s	02:38	30.9%	1029
9x9	byoyomi	30s + 5x10s	03:11	10.5%	639
19x19	fischer	30s + 3s	07:05	51.9%	395
19x19	byoyomi	30s + 5x10s	09:55	21.2%	709

Rapid:

size	time_control	clock	duration	timeout_rate	samples
9x9	fischer	2m + 5s	04:30	8.2%	19506
9x9	byoyomi	2m + 5x30s	05:09	1.5%	5990
19x19	fischer	5m + 5s	15:53	14.7%	9219
19x19	byoyomi	5m + 5x30s	19:08	5.2%	6798

Long:

size	time_control	clock	duration	timeout_rate	samples
9x9	fischer	3m + 10s	06:22	5.7%	2817
9x9	byoyomi	5m + 5x30s	06:39	2.6%	6148
19x19	fischer	10m + 10s	25:14	5.1%	2912
19x19	byoyomi	20m + 5x30s	26:40	3.1%	8697

When initially picking what clock settings to use for each of the categories I did a lot of analysis on games in our database to figure out what Fischer time settings would result in games that lasted about as long as their byo-yomi counterparts, erring on less time if a value seemed to line up well with respect to the other settings. In that respect about half of the selections are pretty decent while the other half came up about shy, which is pretty much what we aimed for. However what wasn’t as measurable at the time was the timeout rate as people playing open challenges using similar settings were probably more prepared to manage their time accordingly for the given Fischer settings they were using.

Given the current data I think the Fischer times are probably too fast, resulting in too many timeouts. I would expect the timeout rate for Fischer games to be a bit higher than that of their byo-yomi counterparts as they tend to bring in the 90th percentile game durations significantly, but I don’t think we want to be seeing 3x the timeout rate. Additionally, the 9x9 byo-yomi time seems to be too long as on average folks aren’t experiencing much if any time pressure.

NeonLights · December 16, 2024, 8:11pm

I keep thinking, why should I use a system that requires me to set the zoom in Chrome to 20% just to fit it all onscreen.

mgv · December 16, 2024, 8:24pm

I play lots of blitz 9x9 but I almost always use custom games because I very rarely find a game through the new quick match selector. I like the idea of emphasizing quick matches, but there’s a few things that I think need to be adjusted

For blitz 9x9, I think the current fischer timing is both too slow and too fast. I would prefer something like 20s + 5s. That keeps the max wait time between moves low, but still keeps the pace reasonable. With 30s + 3s the moves have to be very fast, but the max wait time between moves may still be high enough that someone looks away from the game, leading to a timeout.

I very much dislike the default of handicap: auto on the quick match selector. I think especially for 9x9 handicap doesn’t really work very well. I am willing to play handicap games from time to time, but I think it makes sense to default to no handicap unless a player selects the option to always require a handicap.

I like the little green dots when another player is waiting on the same quick match, I think that was a really good idea. Maybe activity on the quick match selector will pick up now that that is implemented.

One other thought: it would be nice to be able to create a custom game while waiting on the quick match system to find a game, then whichever game is joined first, the other gets cancelled. My usual goal is to find a game as quickly as possible, and I don’t usually have a strong preference on time settings as long as the game is fast. Right now I rarely use the quick match feature because it is much faster to find a game through the custom games menu, and I suspect that many other people may be in the same boat. If it were possible to create a challenge for a custom game while using quick match, then I would almost always use quick match

sbstnmntlf · December 16, 2024, 8:27pm

And Rengo?

Jhyn · December 16, 2024, 8:46pm

My main problem with the quick match setting is that I cannot choose multiple board sizes or more than one time setting. I don’t think this is possible but please correct me.
Sometimes I’m up for rapid 9x9 or rapid 13x13, or maybe I want a 9x9 and I don’t care about the time setting, but I want to find an opponent faster.

anoek · December 16, 2024, 8:48pm

That feature was (re-)added about a week ago, click on the drop down in the upper right and change “Flexible” to “Multiple”, then select all the board sizes and speeds you’d like

Jhyn · December 16, 2024, 9:19pm

Ah, great, thanks. If you told me it had always been there I could think I was crazy
I can see the “Multiple” time setting unlocks the ability to choose multiple board sizes.

I am not a designer and I understand that there are many things to take into account, but may I offer suggestions?
The fact that “Multiple” impacts board sizes is very hidden and even contradicts the tooltip below “Multiple”.
Personnally I would be fine with removing the choice Exact / Flexible / Multiple and have it behave as multiple by default. The current interface seems clear to me and one less item is better.
If you keep the current system the dropdown is not a choice for time settings but for time/board settings. It should be somewhere else. An option would be a binary choice Exact / Multiple on top (radio choice instead of a dropdown).

ricka10241 · December 16, 2024, 10:39pm

Thanks for the enhanced GO choices; I’m a low rank and it helps.

dexonsmith · December 16, 2024, 10:46pm

I voted “keep the Fischer clock” and was planning to vote “remove byo-yomi” but that poll was not available. I prefer Fischer for live games (assuming we fix the balance between main time and increment), but I don’t think we should be complicating quick match with a choice.

The time system really doesn’t matter that much, IMO, even though there are strong preferences. People will get used to either one.

ckersch · December 16, 2024, 11:35pm

Would it be possible to combine the custom game and automatch pools? I think my ideal would be to have quick match have some default setting I like and some list of default settings I’d accept. Auto-join any game matching my settings, and if one doesn’t exist, create one with my defaults. Show me all the games, automatch or custom, that I can join in the table.

The biggest issue for me isn’t whether I want to play Fischer or Byo-Yomi, but whether I can get a game in a reasonable amount of time. Whatever gives me the best ability to do so and reduces the pool fragmentation to the greatest degree is the solution I want.

BHydden · December 16, 2024, 11:58pm

+1

I would prefer for me just fischer, but ultimately just one option is better for the feature, even if that is byo-yomi. Simplify.

anoek · December 17, 2024, 12:26am

FTR I added two more polls regarding the individual blitz settings.

anoek · December 17, 2024, 12:27am

They’re implemented very differently currently, but re-implementing them into a unified system is under consideration.

mirthturtle · December 17, 2024, 12:32am

I like the Multiple option, but this is so many numbers for my brain to parse, and it doesn’t even say Byo-yomi or Fischer. For a new player I think it would be overwhelming.

Why not a [ Blitz / Rapid / Relaxed / Correspondence ] chooser and another for Fischer and Byo-Yomi. I personally prefer custom games and it irks me I have to scroll down past an enormous interface to see them.

shinuito · December 17, 2024, 12:39am

I guess one could imagine that while you have flexible selected you don’t need to see both options, you could just select

or live.

Then one could expand blitz, rapid , live into their byo-yomi and Fischer options when flexible is not selected if one really had to collapse but keep the options.

fuseki3 · December 17, 2024, 1:24am

I feel like this too, especially for the “multiple” selection – I feel the display of “ranges” clutters things somehow visually. Is it necessary to display ?

I think just one column of 3 buttons with specific timesettings doesn’t look so bad.

I personally prefer custom games also, though I probably wouldn’t mind using or trying the automatch – likely more often – if the interface weren’t so complicated and overwhelming.

On another note, although some of the long discussions I recall seeing some time ago wanted to try to funnel more players into automatch to make that more usable or in-use, is it necessary to make the custom games button smaller, or seem more like an afterthought as it could seem now ?

I think they’d co-exist well (for example when automatchers also want to browse the custom games whilst waiting) if both Automatch and Custom were explicit and very visible, and the Automatch interface was simplified.

(Right now the “explore custom games” button is almost a little easy to miss in the noise, and/or could seem like another of various toggles/options)

To continue the discussion in the other main thread about a separate button for Bot games, how about making clear buttons of the same size, and doing something with the interface like this ? (various adjustments proposed from the other thread in the image)

(with either byo-yomi or Fischer as the main option…)

(or if wanted, 2 buttons with "Fischer and Byo Yomi which show three corresponding different buttons beneath when clicked : )

Edit to add :

That would also have the added benefit of de-cluttering the current custom games interface, along with the automatch – the current custom games looks a bit wordy and cluttered with the 3 buttons (which are always visible in between automatch & custom games lists) being more visual noise to process

(potentially redundant for the bots too, if we just make a “bot match” type button which leads to all selection/options there)

Current interface :

Adjusted interface which could be put below the simplified Automatch interface :

Angelodmage · December 17, 2024, 1:42am

I would like to see some quicker correspondence format, like: fisher, 1 day initial time, 6-12h increment, max 3 days, no pauses on weekends. For people who don’t like the time pressure of live games but want to make several moves per day.

BHydden · December 17, 2024, 2:27am

josjoha · December 17, 2024, 7:05am

I would also prefer a format in between the “long” 5m+5x30s clock (9x9), and daily correspondence, because I feel a lot of time pressure with the so-called “long” setting, but with the daily correspondence I would often just wait for a move.

Perhaps it is my problem being too new, to want to think longer. One solution could be to make it 5m+5x60 seconds (extend it from that end), or from the other end: 1 move / 12 hours, for a morning & evening move, allowing enough time for work/sleep on each cycle ?

I read once about people timing games with one hour glass. It could be implemented as a black/white colored bar for example on the left/right side of the board. The color split runs up if the other player thinks, growing in your color, and vice versa. So if you are white, the white color goes up on a 1 cm wide bar running on the side of the board, while the black color is disappearing.

You could give it a Byo-Yomi element at the ends of the bars to for example count down a last N seconds you will always have, for example in a red color. It was said that it was interesting that you could put time pressure on the other player by being fast yourself, or the game could be relaxed if both take their time.

jlt · December 17, 2024, 7:31am

I voted “keep Fischer” because I prefer Fischer over byo-yomi, but I prefer only 1 time option, whatever it is, than having a choice between Fischer and byo-yomi.