Per Turn MP Time Limit? Contribute Your Thoughts!

Discussion in 'Card Hunter General Chat' started by Jon, Jun 12, 2013.

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How long should you get for each turn before the game passes for you?

  1. Shorter than 30 seconds

    2.7%
  2. 30 seconds

    4.1%
  3. One minute

    20.3%
  4. Two minutes

    48.6%
  5. Three minutes

    14.9%
  6. Longer than three minutes

    9.5%
  1. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    We've always thought that we might want to add a per-turn time limit to multiplayer. The idea is to auto-pass if you don't take your turn within that time period. This timer would be in addition to the existing per-battle time limit after which you lose the game.

    The point of the per-turn time limit is to prevent stalling, or at least make it harder to stall by waiting until you are about to time out and then passing, hoping your opponent has left the game.

    The simplest implementation of this would be a fixed time limit per turn (i.e. per card play or pass). If you don't play a card or pass within that time limit, the timer would auto-pass for you.

    How long would this turn limit be? Probably one to two minutes I guess - long enough that you don't feel hugely pressured taking each turn but short enough to try to stop things getting too boring.

    However, this alone probably doesn't solve the problem as you now are stuck playing one card every (say) two minutes - not exactly fun. Here are some additional options:
    • If the system auto-passes for you three times in a row you lose the battle. So, someone trying to game the system has to step in and keep playing at some slow rate to stop this kicking in.
    • The auto-passer gets more and more frequent each time it kicks in. So the first auto-pass happens in two minutes, then one minute, then 30 seconds and so on. Once again, someone can step and keep resetting this, but it requires active involvement.
    I'm open to other ideas. Ultimately, of course, these sort of automated systems won't stop people from gaming the system but they can make it harder. We'll probably have to add some sort of reputation system to penalise bad sportsmanship in the long run, but that's a fair deal of additional work.
    I've also added a poll - how long would you like this auto-passing system to give you for each turn, if we do implement it?
    Is it a good idea or do you have a better one?
     
  2. Evolved

    Evolved Mushroom Warrior

    I like it and am casting a vote for 1-2 minutes. I would like it however if the first turn of the game for each player was a bit more forgiving. It often takes me a little extra time to look at where all the characters are in relation to each other and start to come up with my initial strategy. 3 minutes for that should be plenty though.

    As for auto passing I think a 2m, 1m, 30s you're out could be nice.
     
  3. Valor

    Valor Kobold

    Sounds like a good idea to me, I'm sure you guys could implement it well.
    I also agree With Evolved, first turn should clearly give a little more time to plan your strategy.
     
  4. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Good idea.
     
  5. Sayeth Aether

    Sayeth Aether Mushroom Warrior

    I agree, the first step is usually the hardest to decide so three minutes first turn and then two minutes or 90 seconds for the rest of the game would be fine.
    I am more inclined towards the first possibility, autopassing three times for game over would make it faster for players that do want to play to get back into matchmaking instead of needing to kill enemies and stall the game on the vicotry points.
     
  6. attog

    attog Mushroom Warrior

    This is a great idea, glad you are thinking of stuff like this to enhance the playing experience for the legitimate people who aren't trying to take advantage of others. I also think the reputation system has potential but also will have a lot of consequences that you will have to think through when you implement it.

    For this time limit, can you define what is a "turn"? If I am playing you and I am afk, you go first and play your card. Then it sits there for the 2-3 minutes and I do nothing so it passes, then you play your next card...then it sits there for 2-3 minutes again and I do nothing so it passes. Was that one turn or two? If that was two turns, what happens if the turn that they happen to be afk is the final turn of that round and now they are sitting at the discard screen, but they are still afk? Will the discard screen also count as a "turn" for time limit purposes?
     
  7. I am in favor of two minutes with a decreasing timer every time it is auto passed (three auto passes in a row = a boot)
    1 minute is bit short for me because sometimes I might want to legitimately sit and think or count squares or something :)

    I can totally understand having the first turn be extra time (3 or 4 minutes) because people might be afk before the round starts waiting on an opponent they may need the extra time.

    But maybe if they are passed on their first turn it should be an auto forfeit? It seems like 3 or 4 minutes of inactivity should really let the other player find a real game.


    Another option entirely:

    Essentially the match would start with a 5 minute timer, but every time you play 30 seconds is added to the timer. If your 5 minutes runs out you go into 90 second overtime where you get 90 seconds per move.
    Obviously with this you lose a definite time limit on the match, which would be bad without the victory squares (turtle, turtle), but with them it seems fine as long as both players are playing and drawing cards.
     
    Mutak and Farbs like this.
  8. Rorre

    Rorre Orc Soldier

    Do you have data on how long turns are now? (or, if if this is becoming common, how long turns were a couple of weeks ago?)

    Edit: "this" being the akfing that was being discussed in the thread that I was reading that is not this one :p
     
  9. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    How would people feel about a system like this (similar to JayPlaysIndieGames's suggestion):
    • Each player starts with 3 minutes on their turn clock
    • Each turn you gain 30 seconds on that clock, up to a maximum of 3 minutes per turn
    • If your turn clock times out you lose
    This means you can stop to think for a couple of minutes every now and then, but you can't subject your opponent to successive long waits.

    I'm suggesting auto-lose rather than softer earlier penalties since I think the soft penalty game experience for either player is pretty poor. You don't want to burn time playing against someone who is slowly auto-passing, and you don't want to pick up your game after a few terrible automatic decisions.

    Thoughts?
     
    PDXTai, amm, Neofalcon and 4 others like this.
  10. Rorre

    Rorre Orc Soldier

    If I'm reading this correctly, this would reduce the overall game clock to 6 minutes from 20? I think I'd like to see the game clock reduced, but maybe down to 10, and that might be a completely separate discussion from this one.

    What about an amendment to "up to a maximum of 17 minutes" to avoid having two discussions at once?

    Otherwise, I love that suggestion (and like reducing the maximum clock too, I'm just leery of tangents in forum contexts :p)
     
  11. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member


    A "turn" is one card play (or a pass). Well, technically, you can play more than one card if you have a trait or a cantrip, but you get the idea.

    A "round" is a sequence of card plays and passes that ends when you both pass.
     
  12. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Nope! :p
    I need to explain this better.

    This "turn clock" runs alongside the existing 20 minute clock.
    At the start of your turn, up to 30 seconds is added to your turn clock.
    The turn clock is limited to allow a maximum of 3 minutes per turn.

    I'll amend my earlier post to clarify this also.
     
  13. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    It might be misleading to refer to this as a turn clock, since we'd need to apply it whenever you have control of the game rather than just whenever it is your turn. For example, during the discard phase the game will wait for each player to perform their discards. This is not, by our definition, the player's "turn", however it is a time at which we would need to apply this system.
     
  14. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Call it a response timer?
     
    Farbs likes this.
  15. Evolved

    Evolved Mushroom Warrior

    The 3 minute turn clock that increases by 30s sounds great.
     
  16. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Yep, that's great.
     
  17. Rorre

    Rorre Orc Soldier

    Ok, so, apologies if this is really obvious to everyone but me, but one of my super-powers is asking stupid questions :)

    The proposal here is that the existing 20 minute timer operates as it does, so a game is still no longer than 40 minutes, and in addition, you've got like a "bank" of time for the per-turn thing.

    "turn" here is "playing a card", so if you ever spend more than 3 minutes playing a single card, you lose the game, or if you spend more than a minute per
    card for three cards in a row, you also lose, but you can fill this "bank" back up to 3 minutes by playing very quickly (or passing) 6 or 7 cards times - Like a Fisher delay with a cap? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_control#Compensation_.28delay_methods.29 )

    Assuming that that's right, I like the chess-clocky feel and the instant death. 3 minutes seems very generous for a single card, and I like the building up of that window with play - even if you're thinking very hard, you should pick up an extra chunk of time for your first move or two with the pass at the end of the round, but if you're stalling, then you get down to 30 seconds per card and stay there relatively quickly.

    It does sounds a little complex, and the mental picture of two clocks running is not pretty. Presenting it nicely could take a little bit of work, but this seems like a good direction.
     
  18. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    I don't think we'd run two clocks - it would be too confusing.

    The response timer would just kick in with warnings (e.g. "you have thirty seconds left to play"). We wouldn't expect people to track how much response time they have apart from that.
     
    Rorre likes this.
  19. Forduc

    Forduc Orc Soldier

    Sounds like decent idea, minute or few should be plenty of time to decide an action.

    However, timer on first turn should be atleast as long as maximum wait time for PvP match (6 min atm?). Reason being that typically when there's less players, people might go and do something else while waiting for the match start.

    Either ramp up first turn timer or reduce Pvp wait time. I would prefer reducing pvp wait times, it's quite annoying when after few wins.
     
  20. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    I think we'd turn this system off when playing the AI. It doesn't care how long you take to make any one play.
     
    Neofalcon, Mutak, Grombak and 2 others like this.

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