Hammering out a Fifty Turn Rule proposal

This can already be abused on the ladder currently. If both players agree not to click any move, the battle room expires after a certain amount of time, and the game isn't counted, it's like it never happened. Some people had to resort to this during the Dugtrio suspect test, because there was no way of ending stall games (or it wasnt worth the time) so agreeing to that was a better solution.
I know, you could even drop the game via closing the browser together with you opponent, but when I did that once, a moderator forced me to drop my suspect ladder account threatening me of ban, so I guess that practice is against PS! Global rules, therefore nothing I would rely on solving an issue at all.
 
As a chess player, I completely disagree with implementing draw by agreement and I think it's being seriously misrepresented. First, it's controversial even for those at the top of the chess community; FIDE has warred with players over allowing draw by agreement, and some grandmasters have expressed the view that draw by agreement is not good for the game. So in the only widely played and recognized sport that allows it (source: Wikipedia lol), the presiding federation and some of its top players disapprove of its existence! Inertia is a problem for them; is this really something we want to start using? Having come from playing and following chess for a decade, I would hate to see one of the most controversial rules blindly instated here.

Let's consider why you would want to draw by agreement. Draw by agreement implies that neither player believes they can win, which is likely because the game is in a state of relative parity of strength. Fifty-move rule, threefold repetition, and Ko rule are rules intended to prevent endless games. They check to make sure progress is constantly being made. If progress is not being made, it is because players are in a state of relative parity and cannot create an advantage (there is the side possibility of one player being utterly inept that I think should be ignored for the sake of policy). If your issue is that stall vs stall matchups create endless games, then I would think we should prevent endless games from happening. The solution should not be to have a bandage at the ready for when an endless game is created. The solution should be to not allow the endless battle to be created at all. For any reason that draw by agreement can be useful, a proper draw condition would suffice.

Logically, draw by agreement is always redundant if there are natural draw conditions. If it is possible to draw such that players see it and want to draw by agreement, then the path the the draw is necessarily either trivial or nontrivial. If it is trivial, then it should not be of consequence for players to complete the path to a draw. If it is nontrivial, then skill is a factor; skill is a valued win condition in every competitive game I can think of. As a result, allowing a draw would be premature. In all situations where draw by agreement is viable, a properly codified draw condition would have prevented the issue as well. We may not "lose" anything from draw by agreement (the next paragraph is where I disagree with this completely unsupported premise simply assumed to be true for some reason), but it certainly doesn't make sense to implement over a real draw condition.

For those unfamiliar with recent (relatively at least) chess history, draw by agreement has actually caused a lot of problems, contrary to what you may be led to believe. All you really need to do is look up "grandmaster draws" and see the problems that draw by agreement have resulted in. Players that are apathetic or wish to act with cartel-like intentions draw by agreement, and this is historically supported. I'm not part of the Smogon tournament community, but I personally would not like to be part of tournaments that all but encourage players that are utterly apathetic to winning and intentionally lose or draw games or act maliciously with some to gain unnatural advantages over others. Yes, players can take advantage of fifty-move rule to do those things intentionally. That should be persecuted as with all those attempting to game the system, not apathetically ignored like this:

If people are really going to mindlessly switch for a couple hunfred turns and then sit there for 30 minutes - 1h just to draw their friend, and that's assuming they're playing someone who wants to draw as much as them, then sure let them do that.
Just as a supporting example, Magic: the Gathering allows for intentional draw (I believe their arbiters can refuse to uphold an intentional draw). Draw by agreement has long posed its own problems in their tournaments as well. If you're unsure or don't know 100% whether or not draw by agreement can be harmful, please do look into chess or MtG for historically supported evidence that show that it can. I struggle to understand why one would fight so hard to preserve this form of endless battle in such a fashion when others here have worked just as hard to stamp out all other forms of it.


Anyway, sorry for the long tirade against draw by agreement. The heart of the problem is that endless battles are possible at all. By its very definition, draw by agreement does not prevent endless battle. If one side, say in the same fashion as ABR who refused to draw vs Tele, chooses to not allow the battle to draw by agreement, then we have an endless battle. Draw by fifty-move rule and threefold repetition may be enforced with the consent of only one of the players without the other, which is a guaranteed way to prevent malicious endless battles from happening. The goal should be to prevent endless battles, not allow them with the intent to use a bypass. Zarel's proposed extension of Endless Battle Clause is a logical solution to me (I mistakenly forgot to include PP in my original proposal). The numbers look to my uneducated eyes to be arbitrary at this time, so that could be something to discuss.

Three minor side notes that aren't related to each other:
  1. Chess can end in two natural ways: either there is a winner and a loser or the game is forcibly drawn by stalemate or insufficient material (which are required by the definition of the rules of chess; stalemate is when a player cannot make a legal move and insufficient material means neither player can legally checkmate the other). Pokemon can end in only one natural way: with a winner and a loser. Pokemon can never naturally end in a draw. A draw by agreement in chess accelerates the game state to the natural final state of "draw" that could have been reached anyway, there is no such natural final state in Pokemon that can be reached in any other way. Thus, pointing to the existence of draw by agreement in chess as a positive argument is flawed. (Rules enforcing progression by definition preclude the need for draw by agreement, so they are not included for acceptably natural final states)
  2. The well-known fifty-move rule in chess is opt-in. A user must call for it to be enforced. However, there is a further rule that goes beyond fifty-move rule that is automatic and required. Whether or not we allow fifty-move rule or any other rule to be enforced or automatic, there should still be a final rule that is absolute in order to prevent any endless battle. For the record, this rule activated on by enforcing both a seventy-five-move rule and a fivefold repetition rule, which is to say it's simply a more extreme version of the other two rules.
  3. A hard cap to the turn count does not itself aim to solve endless battle but instead aims to solve "battles being too long". I see that as unnecessarily convoluted and ignoring the actual problem (it's also horribly inelegant). If battles are too long, then the problem is that the game itself allows the turn count to reach too high of a number to begin with. The solution should then be one tailored to preventing the turn count from being unreasonably high.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
is a Site Content Manageris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
There is literally no point to railing against offered draws but still supporting draw by threefold repetition. They are roughly equivalent in nature, since threefold takes no time or effort. If you oppose one you need to oppose both. 50 move is different enough to keep separate (as is stalemate).

Chess is not a bad game because you can offer draws. It's a game that depends on mental acuity in circumstances that can go on for many hours, but with eventual tight time constraints (even when playing with increment). Both players in an even or unbalanced position may prefer the certainty of a draw to the risk of playing on. Most humans are risk averse by nature, this isn't a bug it's a feature.

Stall matchups being able to offer a draw after X turn is totally reasonable. Chess generally requires it after a certain turn as well. I still think forced draw mechanisms need to exist, but offering draws is not terrible in and of itself.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
There is literally no point to railing against offered draws but still supporting draw by threefold repetition. They are roughly equivalent in nature, since threefold takes no time or effort. If you oppose one you need to oppose both. 50 move is different enough to keep separate (as is stalemate).
You're missing the reason why I don't like offering draw.

I only have a bit of a problem with the idea that people can agree to a draw. The much bigger problem I have is with that being the only way to end a game in a reasonable amount of time, since it means as long as one player refuses to draw, he can make the game take as long as he wants. Which can be used to coerce the other player if the other player needs to go to the bathroom, or sleep, or something.

And this is seriously the third time I've said that, and it seems like everyone's just been ignoring that.
 
Last edited:
You're missing the reason why I don't like offering draw.

I only have a bit of a problem with the idea that people can agree to a draw. The much bigger problem I have is with that being the only way to end a game in a reasonable amount of time, since it means as long as one player refuses to draw, he can make the game take as long as he wants. Which can be used to coerce the other player if the other player needs to go to the bathroom, or sleep, or something.

And this is seriously the third time I've said that, and it seems like everyone's just been ignoring that.
I don't think anyone in this thread wants a request draw option without a force draw mechanic. I think Bughouse is saying something like "if people can just agree to switch x amount of turns repeatedly to artificially force a draw, why not give them a button to make it more formal and legitimate?" Now, I think it looks better on you as a simulator owner if people aren't making agreements that circumvent the rules. If something is inevitably going to occur, and isn't that harmful in the first place, you might as well legalize it and do it your way. Again, turn/time minimums can be put in place before any sort of draw can be requested, and there should be a similar if not greater minimum for a forced draw to kick in. For example, you can implement something like the request draw button only being clickable or showing up after 200 turns / 30 minutes.

I and everyone else are fully prepared to discuss the optimal force draw mechanic that ps will adopt, but please hear us out in regards to the complementary request draw button. Thank you.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
I don't think anyone in this thread wants a request draw option without a force draw mechanic. I think Bughouse is saying something like "if people can just agree to switch x amount of turns repeatedly to artificially force a draw, why not give them a button to make it more formal and legitimate?" Now, I think it looks better on you as a simulator owner if people aren't making agreements that circumvent the rules. If something is inevitably going to occur, and isn't that harmful in the first place, you might as well legalize it and do it your way. Again, turn/time minimums can be put in place before any sort of draw can be requested, and there should be a similar if not greater minimum for a forced draw to kick in. For example, you can implement something like the request draw button only being clickable or showing up after 200 turns / 30 minutes.

I and everyone else are fully prepared to discuss the optimal force draw mechanic that ps will adopt, but please hear us out in regards to the complementary request draw button. Thank you.
The problem is that a lot of the force draw proposals here don't actually solve the problem of "games can last five hours, and players often start games when they don't have five hours to spare, which the other player can take advantage of by refusing to agree to a draw" (for reference, five hours is approximately 1000 turns).

The reason I oppose "offer draw" is because it makes people think they can get away with not solving that problem. They can't. The fact that you guys are focusing on the "offer draw" button is because your force draw proposals are not good enough to solve that problem.

If you have an actually good force-draw proposal, "offer draw" stops mattering because playing until the force-draw isn't hard. The fact that you still want "offer draw" tells me that your force-draw isn't good enough. I am trying to rule out "offer draw" to force you to design a force-draw that is good enough.
 
Zarel would you be amicable to implementing an offer draw button in the meantime while we work out a more thorough longterm solution? Normally I'm not one to advocate for a bandaid solution but from the looks of this thread nothing is going to get agreed upon before OLT starts.
 
I also didn't intend for this to become Endless Battles 2.0, so let's get back to the intent of this thread:
If:
1. No Pokemon has received direct damage (where direct damage means damage taken from the opposing Pokemon by any move)
2. No Pokemon has received net passive damage barring Pokemon with Regenerator (where net passive damage means final HP - initial HP < 0 in any one turn. self-induced damage, entry hazard damage, and ability- or item-caused damage would count)
3. No Pokemon has received net healing outside of Regenerator (where net healing means final HP - initial HP > 0 in any one turn)
4. No Pokemon with Regenerator has received greater than 30% net passive damage in any one turn
5. This is valid for X turns in a row (where X is the decided turns)

Then:
Tie is forced
Where does improvement need to happen in this proposal? A 1000 turn hard cap is relatively straightforward, so is an offer draw button. A fifty turn rule is not, and the parameters need workshopping I'd wager. A fifty turn rule is also likely the most viable path to resolve endless battles while not interfering with normal play.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

This user has a custom title
is a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Okay, if the rest of you can't agree, I'm going with this:

- 10 turns of Endless Battle Clause staleness (zero PP loss or damage)
- 200 turns without a Pokémon fainting
- 1000 turns total
I question the decision of 200 turns without fainting, it's not unusual in gsc to have a few mons die by turn 30 or 50 and then the next 200 turns play out without any other pokemon fainting yet with each player actively playing towards their win con. Looked up a replay just off of memory that had such a situation occur over ~130 turns between two offensive/balanced teams while playing out the end game scenario, in matchups between stall teams it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that could extend over the course of 200-300 turns with not insignificant frequency.

Not sure where the number should be placed, but 200 turns doesn't seem far off. I doubt you'd be amenable to excluding gsc from that subclause solely so perhaps 350 turns?
 

PDC

street spirit fade out
is a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Four-Time Past WCoP Champion
i don't have any final thoughts on literal turn limit, but options a) and b) are just not viable (it should be a big tip-off that any remotely competent player disagrees with your criteria).

200 turns without a pokemon fainting is such a ridiculously narrow limit that you are invalidating a near majority of defensively inclined games. this i assume is not exactly a SM exclusive term limit either - so you're outright bound to have serious clashes with slower gens like gsc / rby. also, just because a game goes past "200 turns without a ko," this just not mean that the game is unwinnable. i've had dozens of games where i had to slowly formulate a pp stall or otherwise in order to eventually win or lose.

the 10 turn double switch limit is theoretically exploitable and incredibly low for a clause like this; this part of the proposed turn limit should never be implemented in a serious competitive setting. i don't understand why you are so adamant about implementing this - obviously the turn limit should not be left to you discretion. this should be left to the td team / ou council for discussion probably if we are getting generation specific.
 
Okay, if the rest of you can't agree, I'm going with this:

- 10 turns of Endless Battle Clause staleness (zero PP loss or damage)
- 200 turns without a Pokémon fainting
- 1000 turns total
I don't think we need multiple aspects of an endless battle like this. The most worrisome to me is the 200 turn one, as there are plenty of possible finite games that would be stopped by that one. Additionally, 10 seems a bit too controlling of how we would otherwise play games. You don't really let people position properly if they're bound by 10 turns. If you recall me vs tele (1287 turns), at times i switched for 20-30 turns in a row to position myself properly. This may be an extreme case but I won that game legitimately and it would have been force drawn by all 3 if your rules. Therefore, you aren't properly detecting endlessness.

The proper ruleset would probably only include one of: "x (far greater than 10) turns in a row with no pp loss or damage" OR "game ends at turn x (higher than 1000)." You can even make x more extreme in either case so it doesn't wrongfully draw non-endless games, and then give players the request draw option if they detect endlessness before the force-draw criteria.
 

Googly

Arcadia
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I'm not sure I like this idea of drawing battles. Wouldn't it allow people to bring ultra passive teams and get away with it? One of the risks of bringing something so passive is that neither you nor your opponent will be able to break/outlast the opposing team. Being able to draw in those scenarios obviously removes that risk. Ultra passive stall teams would be more appealing to use, since you can just draw against other stall and you basically beat anything else that isn't tailored to your specific team. I know that's a bit of an oversimplification, but do we really want to make stall better and more popular than it already is?

If 2 players bring ultra passive stall and get stuck in an endless battle then that should be on them. If they're willing to spend hours switching in and out of Toxapex, I say let them. But if it only takes one player to cause an endless battle, then that seems like a problem with the metagame itself and something really needs to be done about stall.
 
Posting for Leru:
let's say player 1 has a toxapex at full, a tangrowth thats low on PP at full, and a Dugtrio at 1%.
player 2 has a full HP clefable and a full HP tangrowth.
There are no hazards on the field.

Both players are switching in between mons so that they don't waste PP because they can't break each other. player 1 has to PP stall player 2 by switching dugtrio in every few turns so that player 2 has to waste a pp (has to use a pp instead of switching due to arena trap) If player 1 is smart he does it once every ~100 or more turns because the longer u wait before switching dugtrio in again, the more unlikely it is that player 2 predicts and attacks the switch. (it results in a tie if dugtrio dies because it gets attacked on the switch)

With the draw rulings proposed, player 1 would have more pressure and has to switch dugtrio in more often, which makes it more likely for player 2 to catch and kill dugtrio on the switch in. Thus, the draw rulings make it less likely for player 1 to win this game, which they definitly shouldn't.

Conclusion:
Draws shouldnt be forced because they might interfere with scenarios like this.
 

Zarel

Not a Yuyuko fan
is a Site Content Manageris a Battle Simulator Administratoris a Programmeris a Pokemon Researcheris an Administrator
Creator of PS
i don't understand why you are so adamant about implementing this - obviously the turn limit should not be left to you discretion. this should be left to the td team / ou council for discussion probably if we are getting generation specific.
I'm not adamant about implementing it. You can implement whatever limit you want. I literally just made a suggestion to get the ball rolling, and to be a last resort if you can't agree on anything better. If you guys want to agree on no limits at all, I'm fine with that, too.

To be 100% clear: If you want games to be able to last five hours, I'm fine with that. Just don't ask me for an "offer draw" button, because you are apparently okay with games lasting five hours.

I don't think we need multiple aspects of an endless battle like this. The most worrisome to me is the 200 turn one, as there are plenty of possible finite games that would be stopped by that one. Additionally, 10 seems a bit too controlling of how we would otherwise play games. You don't really let people position properly if they're bound by 10 turns. If you recall me vs tele (1287 turns), at times i switched for 20-30 turns in a row to position myself properly. This may be an extreme case but I won that game legitimately and it would have been force drawn by all 3 if your rules. Therefore, you aren't properly detecting endlessness.
The rules aren't intended to detect endlessness. Many people have expressed that five hours is not a sane amount of time for a game to last, and they are fine with having games like yours end in ties if it means not having games last five hours.

Not sure where the number should be placed, but 200 turns doesn't seem far off. I doubt you'd be amenable to excluding gsc from that subclause solely so perhaps 350 turns?
So many of you have a problem with 200 turns (1 hour) without a faint. Is expecting at least one Pokémon to faint every hour really a big deal?

Are tournament players aware that they should be setting aside five hours per game?

I'm fine with excluding GSC from that subclause, if you think you'd rather have at least 2 hours between faints. It is entirely up to you how long you consider a sane game to be.

Posting for Leru:

player 1 has to PP stall player 2 by switching dugtrio in every few turns so that player 2 has to waste a pp (has to use a pp instead of switching due to arena trap) If player 1 is smart he does it once every ~100 or more turns
If you think it's sane to PP stall 1-2 PP every hour, like I said, it's not for me to judge. But I thought the problem we were trying to solve was that games should not last anywhere near that long.

Honestly, if you really want that, I'm not going to stop you. All I'm here for is to make sure you understand what problem you're trying to solve, and how well your proposals solve it.
 
I can't speak from a point of expertise necessarily in later gens as I tend not to get involved in ultra long battles as such, but RBY in particular cannot have an "X amount of turns without a faint" rule. It is common enough to end up in something like ReflectChansey vs ReflectChansey where, legitimately, the best play for both players is simply to exhaust every remaining PP because they'd actively lose momentum otherwise. On that note, having played in a ton of those matches, they don't take an hour or anything to go through, both players generally click fairly quickly.

I'm assuming GSC runs into similar things. I've gotten legitimate "endless" matches in ADV (no PP Suicune vs no PP Suicune, no sand) but those are so stupidly rare it'd not be worth considering. Can't really speak for DPP -> ORAS, and while SM has some stall issues I think I agree with the sentiment that it takes two to create that sort of situation for the majority of cases. I'd legitimately just consider it a meta-risk when bringing an incredibly passive teams - you better have the time to grind it out.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

This user has a custom title
is a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
So many of you have a problem with 200 turns (1 hour) without a faint. Is expecting at least one Pokémon to faint every hour really a big deal?

Are tournament players aware that they should be setting aside five hours per game?
I think this is an area where your comparative lack of battling experience works against you; in the circumstances I and others are describing, yes it may take upwards of an hour for one Pokemon to faint but with all the maneuvering and pp depleting that occurs over that period of time the first Pokemon to fall is usually the domino that kicks out the end of the game in short order, particularly as such situations are typically of the a beats b beats c beats a variety.

I personally have never had a game last long than an hour and a half. Address five hour games, but be careful that the rules you set don't infringe on legitimate game states.
 
So, Zarel, you did make one particularly important point.

I entirely agree with you that there is no proper way to prevent long battles while also not wrongly detecting endless games with a force draw rule. So if we had to pick a side, I think almost everyone would rather err on the side of caution in this regard, having a very distant/rare force draw criteria so we don't prematurely end games that can end. As such, I'm going to offer what I believe to be the best solution.

"A game is force drawn when the battle reaches 1000 turns."

A raw turn cap is the best option because it does not interfere with ordinary games. A rule like the 10 or 50 rule directly interferes with non-endless games, and thus is distasteful. Additionally, if you implement something with the style of the 10 or 50 rule, then you have a situation where there is no good middle ground. What I mean is, while a 10 turn rule prevents games from having a total duration that is too long, it interferes too much with ordinary gameplay. On the contrary, a 50 turn rule may leave ordinary gameplay alone, but games can still be drawn out far beyond 1000 turns with this. These are the extreme cases but there really is no sweet spot number with this style of rule. Others have already explained why going by deaths isn't optimal, so this leaves us with the raw cap. I say 1000 because it is the least arbitrary number, but also is around that range that force draws just the right amount of games. It's distant but it isn't impossible to reach by any means. It ends games when they should end.

Now, given the distant nature of this rule, I have a complementary rule for PS! to implement. Please hear me out on this one.

"After 200 turns have passed, either player may request a draw. Another draw may be requested at least 50 turns after the previous draw request." (regardless of who requested it)

If you really want to prevent abuse, you can add a time minimum alongside the initial 200 turns but I just wanted to keep it clean and simple.
Also if 50 turns is too brief it can be made to 75 or 100.

I know that you said "needing request draws is a symptom of an improper force draw rule." Well, you're right. But it's not our rule that's bad, it's the nature of the game we play, and the nature of trying to build a rule around its flaws. There is no possible force draw ruleset that perfectly detects endless games in a reasonable timeframe that also doesn't wrongfully end games. So, to compensate for this natural imperfection, we can add a request draw rule. Especially because the force draw rule leans to the side of tackling endless games, not just long games, there is very good reason to let people prevent long games if they so incline.

Summation: So, the 1000 turn cap is in place to prevent truly endless games from going on and on, and almost never forcefully ends games against the wishes of the players. Even so, 1000 is quite a large number, and as such, 2 players may feel they don't want to wait fully until the 1000 turn cap, and rightfully so. But since we can't compromise the cap, we can add a secondary function: the request draw. The request draw solves the natural imperfection of a force draw rule, and allows players a shortcut if they mutually agree upon it.
 
Last edited:
There's also the other possible issue (brought up in the other thread) that draws can be coordinated in ways that subvert the ladder system.
You can actually do this on the ladder right now. If both players just close out the battle by just closing out the tab and then reopening showdown without the battle in the url. The game will eventually just disappear without the ladder recognizing it with a win or a loss.
 
As an aside, can we stop discussing any request a draw feature in this thread? It holds zero relevance here, where we are supposed to discuss how to force games to end early, even when until now they could be considered winnable.

As for the 'request a draw feature', if you would care to read the post above yours, you would see why many of us consider it to be absolutely relevant to the topic at hand. To 'force games to end early, even when until now they could be considered winnable' is not what any reputable player that has commented on this thread wants, forcing winnable games to end early in particular would be detestable.
 
Last edited:
As for the 'request a draw feature', if you would care to read the post above yours, you would see why many of us consider it to be absolutely relevant to the topic at hand. To 'force games to end early, even when until now they could be considered winnable' is not what any reputable player that has commented on this thread wants, forcing winnable games to end early in particular would be detestable.
If you cared to read the OP, you would know that draw requests are irrelevant here no matter what you or other people may wish. There are other threads to discuss other topics. Welcome to Foruming 101.
 
Last edited:

Eo Ut Mortus

Elodin Smells
is a Programmeris a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past SCL Championis a Past WCoP Champion
That being said, we should do our due diligence and make a proper clause as best we can, which I think this should be 1000 turns and nothing else. 200 turns with no fainting isn't a proper metric of an endless battle; it has too many false positives and whether or not a battle gets caught by this or the 1k turn clause is pretty much matchup dependent. I'm indifferent on 10 turns of no switching; I think it's okay ("conditioning" purely through switching for that long is rare, and the benefits of conditioning as a whole aren't overly harmed by this rule), but I also don't think it'll make much of a difference (people can generally afford to attack once every ten turns until later in the game), and it can be exploited to agree to draws. 1000 turns is currently the most specific and universally agreed upon measure of an excessive game, and unless we can devise otherwise, should be the only clause we effect.

As for a draw button: I'm against this because I think it'll be abused more than it will help. It will be a pain in the ass to monitor matches and enforce what constitutes a legitimate draw, and the cases it will resolve are exceptions themselves anyway (and are eventually resolved through a 1000 turn limit). If physically stalling a person is an issue, then just prevent the timer from refilling or something after x turns or y time, since people would still be able to do that even with the other parts of this clause.
 
As for a draw button: I'm against this because I think it'll be abused more than it will help. It will be a pain in the ass to monitor matches and enforce what constitutes a legitimate draw, and the cases it will resolve are exceptions themselves anyway (and are eventually resolved through a 1000 turn limit). If physically stalling a person is an issue, then just prevent the timer from refilling or something after x turns or y time, since people would still be able to do that even with the other parts of this clause.
I'm glad we can agree on 1000 turns for force draws.

It's a minor point but the draw button would require 0 monitoring. It exists as an option for players to end games when they see fit, usually to avoid extremely long games - ones they see as endless before the system detects it. We hope for avoidance of endless games to be the primary reason, but is it even problematic if people have other reasons?

I see a lot more upside than downside here. Upside: time saver in many practical scenarios, a way to act on a mutual agreement. Downside: a small number of games will be drawn between friends? But even with that downside, people could rapidly agree to switch until the 1000'th turn is met. So, again, this button is merely a time saver. And unless you plan to monitor people who abuse the 1000 rule, and I know you're against monitoring as you just said, then you might as well legitimize and ease a process that is inevitable.

I'll say that a "legitimate draw" is one that occurs via the request draw button or the 1000 turn rule. There is no subjectivity required here.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top