Time Out -A Little Warning Please!?

[Ja Karta]

(03-20-2013 03:09 AM)DanielT1263 Wrote:  1) A countdown timer instead of a count up timer is a good idea.
2) Use capped fisher time. Your timer starts at 4 days, and counts down when it's your turn. When you make your move, don't reset the timer back to 4 days, instead increase the timer by 1 day, but cap it at 4.

What this would mean is that you have to move an *average* of one turn per day, but you would have up to 4 days vacation time.

They might have a cron job that runs once a day and marks games that have stalled for too long. If so then switching to anything that requires two timers (one for each player,) may be too painful.

Yeah. I like using a chess-timer-like strategy.
It would also allow you to
(a) give a larger maximum time
(b) smaller starting time

So you're starting time could be 1 day.
and you get +12 or +24 hours each turn up to, say 6 days.

Time is displayed as a countdown (and displayed as hours when <= 1day)

I think that's the best solution suggested so far.
What do others think?

[NDRDOG]

(03-20-2013 03:09 AM)DanielT1263 Wrote:  They might have a cron job that runs once a day and marks games that have stalled for too long. If so then switching to anything that requires two timers (one for each player,) may be too painful.

Seriously, how many people on the boards do you expect to understand a "cron job" reference? I believe the folks on these boards are smarter than your average bear thus the high quality games but really, "cron job"?

[Ja Karta]

(03-20-2013 05:23 AM)NDRDOG Wrote:  

(03-20-2013 03:09 AM)DanielT1263 Wrote:  They might have a cron job that runs once a day and marks games that have stalled for too long. If so then switching to anything that requires two timers (one for each player,) may be too painful.

Seriously, how many people on the boards do you expect to understand a "cron job" reference? I believe the folks on these boards are smarter than your average bear thus the high quality games but really, "cron job"?

To disambiguate (though I am not the original poster of this reference):
DanielT is, wisely, suggesting that some of the irregularity may result from a server-side bit of code that is run, for example, once a day. That bit of code pours over all or some games and and ends those that are over some time limit.
This means that there will be up to 24hours of fudge (in one direction).
If the job is run less often or only on some games then you can get significantly more than 24hours of fudge.

This is made all the more confusing by the fact that what is listed is time passed in days (does 4 days mean you just started your 4th day or just ended? -- ended, I would infer, but it's not clear without thinking about it and watching time evolve).

This means that either any new system has to allow for significant fudge, the "cron job ("'chron' job"?) has to be run more often, or there has to be a way of running the time issues client side.

(Client side sounds exploitable at first - but it would be fine as long as you put control in the opponents hands. Or a combination of opponent and self.)

[NDRDOG]

You sir, recieve an A for today! For tomorrow I would like you to breakdown and explain the "crontab" file. I will be grading on the curve as always.

[worldfamous]

(03-15-2013 06:22 AM)GreatGonzales Wrote:  

(03-15-2013 06:09 AM)awpertunity Wrote:  It's four days but it seems the server does not check for these timeouts at a fixed rate. So after 96 hours your game can timeout at any second, sometimes it happens immediately and other times it might take an extra day or two.

This sounds right. But that sucks, I know I've lost a game because I waited too long to make a move, and I was quite sure that it hadn't been listed as "4 days" for a 24 hour period. Now I'm super afraid when a game reaches 4 days, and I try to take my turn ASAP.

If the game was accurately bumping people after 4 days, the game would never actually show, "4 days". Once it says, "4 days", 96 hours have already passed since your last turn. I'm sure you've noticed that it lists your last turn in hours for the first day. As for the warning, it does send a push notification after 3 days have passed. I realize that doesn't change how random the actual kill time is. But if you want to ensure you don't forfeit, make your move within 24 hours from that notification. Bottom line, when you see 3 days, make your move.

[Ja Karta]

So to add to the frustrations:
I've been careful to make sure I play a turn whenever it says 3 days have passed.
Did all that the other night. All good.
~11 hours later: "You Lost" On a game that said "2 days ago" 11 hours ago.

I don't know if that's a display failure or a timing mechanism failure or what.
But it's not cool. (I came pretty close to rage quitting, I confess.) I wasn't even close to over time according to what they told me.

They need to implement user side cron jobs.
Run the main on the opponnent's game. Run a copy on the user being waited for's game (so that you can check for mismatches to prevent hacking; not that this is a major worry, it's just basic due diligence).

Also adjust time to show a countdown that moves to hours by the last or second to last day.

I know there's much to be done, but this woudl make EVERYONE happier.
You think I jest?
People who get annoyed by players taking too long (and don't even know if there IS a time out if they're new) would relish seeing the armageddon clock approach midnight.
I really do think that this is worthwhile functionality.

:/

[Norahsul]

@Ja Karta
you got promoted to Master!! Awesome, congrats

[Ja Karta]

@Norahsul
Thanks!
I've got a lot of learning left to do though. Especially about counter-mobi theory (I mostly play feedback; was stuck in a state of constant threat recently on acrospire. Began working out some theory, but never got to test it -- lost due to time out...
But I... digress... back to topic?
That was slick. ).

[Norahsul]

ok, let's play friendlies!! I use mobi mostly and need to learn how to defend feedback!

plus i am jealous/ confsued why i had more points than you but still not advancing

[Ja Karta]

(03-29-2013 10:25 AM)Norahsul Wrote:  ok, let's play friendlies!! I use mobi mostly and need to learn how to defend feedback!

plus i am jealous/ confsued why i had more points than you but still not advancing

Yeah. Definitely. Just add me/ start a game(s) with me whenever.

Super busy, so friendlies much better for me atm than league games!

To maybe answer your question:
As I understand it
Points are "proportional to" (well 'monotonically increase with', but whatev) [win rate]*[# of games]
Hidden skill (and thus promotion) is proportional to just [win rate]
(assuming smooth match making and ignoring possible errors like ringing or massive player base stat shifts).

I don't play a lot of league games in general so that would be a likely explanation. But, until recently, I had a perfect league record at Gifted rank (lost two to bad play on my part I think and two or three to time outs :/ -- personal advice: don't start too many games at once! ). So my points rarely went down, but didn't go up very quickly either.