I find this a bit cumbersome: you have to remember your current ranking for a particular board size, you have to be careful not to switch the order of the upper/lower bound, you have to click and search twice, etc.
Most people want to use this feature to get an opponent around their current ranking (with a possible preference of slightly below or slightly above their rank).
I think a solution like lichess has is much more intuitive:
I was focusing on the sliders.
Just posted the whole window so that people can see how lichess made the rest of it (might be other good ideas there), but no need to redo the whole thing, just the sliders would be nice.
I appreciate the point you’re making, but you are in custom game, which by definition is more cumbersome than automatch.
In the automatch settings there’s just a ± box for you rank range.
That said I can appreciate that this might be a better solution for your purpose even in custom game.
On the other hand, is there anyone who frequently sets up, for example high handicap games against opponents much stronger/weaker? They would find the new system more cumbersome, having to remember their current rank rather than just say “well im somewhere around 1-3kyu, I’d like a 6 stone game so I’ll pick the range 6d-4d or 7kyu-10kyu”
Oh, I didn’t even see those.
Maybe the solution is to remake the automatch settings to be easier to find (it’s not that prominent, compared with the other elements on that window), and with a better interface.
For example, I like to have the option of disable analysis on my games (to be as close to playing in person as possible).
Relative rank difference rather then absolute rank? +1 from me on this too.
And I’m not sure I understand the problem @shinuito presents. Are you saying that, for example, you want a 6 stone game, so you want approximately a 6 rank difference, but you want to be flexible around that due to uncertainty in your rank and your opponent’s rank so you really mean you want a 5-7 rank difference. In which case, the relative rank difference is again easier. You don’t have to remember your own rank. You don’t have to work out your rank +/- 5 and 7. Just set min rank -7 and max rank -5 to play as white or min rank +5 and max rank +7 to play as black.
Yeah that makes sense to me. I’m just trying to throw out some ideas to be shot down.
If it’s all around better then why not.
Maybe it’s not as useful for new players that aren’t beginners? I’d have to know about how rated games and humble ranks worth to see if that makes any sense.
(Imagining a case like I know I’m 3kyu on KGS and just started playing on OGS, and maybe I’d rather pick a absolute rank reference rather than relative to my current/new rank)
Well, if you’re an SDK or a dan player who just joined (and are sure that you’re under-ranked at the moment), you could always start a game with the lower slider -0, and the upper slider +X. Thus you’re sure to only have players stronger than your current rank (that should correct your rank upwards pretty quickly).
When you create unranked game in order to give 9+ handicaps to DDK, -30 … -20 range will only confuse everyone. 25k - 15k is much more clear. So “interval around” is bad idea for CUSTOM challenges.
Probably the solution is to re-design the automatch window to make it clearer, and have all the options that people would like to have in an even game (something like the lichess window, but with the following options):
Rules
Time controls (possibly with sliders as well)
Boardsize: 9x9, 13x13, 19x19
Sliders for rank restrictions
Ranked / Non-ranked
Enable / Disable analysis
Everything else, should probably live under the custom game, namely:
Ah, fair point. Provisional / known incorrect ranks could be a problem. Maybe we could have both relative and absolute ranks in the game setup, switch between the two with a toggle switch and default to absolute for provisional ranks and relative otherwise. Or, as @jmont rightly pints out, just let the rating system sort it out, which should be pretty quick.
I’m not strongly objecting to it, just throwing out ideas to deal with to move the proposal along and generate discussion.
I think this probably needs to be done anyway and I agree lichess also has a very straightforward UI.
Also the automatch for Blitz wouldn’t count as a Blitz game, or count towards blitz ratings. I think there was a < instead of a <= for 10s per move which was discounting the current settings, or possibly the main time pushing it over. I don’t know if that was addressed, or planned to be.
While we’re on the subject, why are the automatch default rank filters so tight?? I know you can change them, but it doesn’t help much if no one else knows to change the settings!