I’ve been thinking about how the current weekend pause for correspondence games works and wanted to suggest an alternative that might better suit players with varied schedules: customizable pause days.
For me, weekends are actually when I have the most time to play, whereas weekdays are busier due to work and other commitments. Having the ability to choose which days our games pause—whether weekends, weekdays, or even specific custom days—would make correspondence games much more flexible and inclusive for everyone.
This feature could work similarly to weekend pause: On challenge or tournament creation, one may tweak the pause days. It would respect the diverse schedules of OGS players while keeping the games fun and accessible.
What do you all think? I’d love to hear feedback from the community and the developers on whether this idea could be implemented.
That sounds like a nice improvement, especially if it’s flexible enough to, say, set 7 pauses from say 9am to 9pm in your time zone or something like that
I like the idea! My initial thought is that it would be hard to put in the UI in a way that is quickly understandable (important for matchmaking). But I honestly dont think it would be that bad:
“Pauses on weekdays”
“Pauses on Mondays Tuesdays and Thursdays” or “Pauses on MTTh” for short
Unfortunately, I think this level of granularity presents bigger issues. Not only would the interface be more complex for both creating and viewing the challenge, one needs to account for two timezones, not one.
I’m sure there’s a way to do it, but currently, OGS does not adjust pause days for players’ timezones. I’m not sure the server even uses users’ timezones for anything meaningful: the time localization that I’m aware of is all done client-side.
Same for me generally. But I can’t say I’m very taken with the idea of random pauses at random times. For me the solution is to scrap (weekend) pausing all together and people get used to using a slightly higher fisher cap or something!
Noone’s proposing anything which would allow that. The closest anyone came was benjito misinterpreting my proposal (which was understandable, as my comment was pretty vague), a misconception which I then corrected
Well then it doesn’t sound all that useful. The tourney creator chooses when to pause but can’t know that that suits the participants. And custom games need two sets of possibly quite mismatched pausing? Or the creator chooses when to pause and the acceptor just has to suck it up?
I’m more convinced that a sensible use of existing time settings and vacation would be better. And the simplification of removing weekend pause is a win in that case and fair for everyone.
Again, noone in this thread ever proposed different pausing schedules for different players
Or not accept. Just like a game creator can choose weird time settings and the accepter can just not accept
I’d similarly opt to just choose slightly longer fischer increments, but this thread is about people who would rather have the clock paused at a more convenient time than the weekend
How is removing a feature that people clearly appreciate (just want to be a bit more flexible) based on the OP, “fair for everyone”?
Weekend offers a standardised pause for everyone, the same way most stores are closed on weekends. I think it’s helpful enough to the majority to keep it as it is.
I like this idea. It would allow things like really fast correspondence tournaments (1hr increment) while still giving time for sleep, and really slow live games you can’t finish in one sitting (clocks only run for one hour at a specific time each week).
But this is a great application of the proposal, too. I think it’s a good sign when it ends up accidentally being useful for more than just what it was intended for
24h+1hr, max 36hrs. Wouldn’t that be enough for a 1 hr increment correspondence with sleep?
How many weeks would that really slow game take? You already have enough pauses for 9 weeks of play at that pace.
This sounds more and more to me like a solution in search of a problem.
Ok, but then I don’t think the proposed solution addresses the stated problem. Weekend paused don’t suit everyone’s schedules. It seems to me that addressing this problem should deliver games that suit both players schedules.
So just adding friction to game accepting. Franky the fewer variables the more games can get played which I think should be our ultimate aim. Maybe this is a minor problem for custom games but it feels unnecessary, especially since it doesn’t really deal with the stated problem as above.