When to throw

Discussion in 'Card Hunter General Chat' started by Obernoob, Aug 31, 2015.

  1. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    A rule of card hunter says, you should not throw a match. I would like to discuss, when I should throw and when not.
    The example is my recently quick draw duel. I had two Elf Mages and an Elf Warrior on this nice map with the design mistake (the host). My opponent has two priest and a warrior. Am I allowed to throw? Ok, I am brave, so I started to draft, which means investing some more minutes. I have one rare control card and no telekinesis or other control cards. Am I allowed to throw now? It was a closer match than you would have thought, while my chars were dancing around him. In the end it were 3 of my chars against the warrior. But in the process I had to take some hits and he got some vps. I was able to distribute the damage I have to take among my chars, which was great. But now there is the warrior sitting on the vp. He got some heal before from the priests, so he has nearly ful hp. From the game so far he has four stab attacks on him, two step attacks and one extra move card. Can I resign now? I went to through the process and lost. Unfortunatly quick draw takes a long time and I cant play another now.

    When do you throw a match? When is it allowed to throw a match?
     
  2. Fry

    Fry Ogre

    First, I want to differentiate between throwing a game and resigning a game. Throwing is to play to intentionally lose; resigning is to surrender or not even attempt to play a game.

    My general philosophy is that anyone should be allowed to resign a game at any time and for any reason. That sometimes goes against BM's official policy though. I can somewhat understand the policy, as it could lead to people abusing the ability to resign to grind out treasure, which is a general problem with having an f2p reward system. Rather than a kludgy "we'll ban you if you resign too much, so don't do it" policy, I think a better system would be some kind of autodetect for too many resigns, that might inflicts a brief timeout for you to start new games ("leaver queue").

    Throwing is just offensive and disrespectful to competition; either play to win, or don't play.
     
  3. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    I totally agree with your statement. My general philosophy is as yours. My own is normally to play till the end. It has happend to me, that I even won with one char against three.

    In the case of leagues I play them of course to get the rewards from the league. Until now I also applied the play till the end rule. But if I have only about half an hour, I should apply a rule of propabilities. A little bit like with taking a mulligan with Magic. Is it more likly to win this game in time or to win a game against a new randomn opponent with new chars and cards in time?
     
  4. timeracers

    timeracers Guild Leader

    My 2 coppers:
    For ranked: Don't surrender til you know you will lose(ok <8% is fine)(time restrains excepted, but don't start a game with less than 20 minutes)
    For leagues: You can surrender after you think you will likely lose(<25%)(time restrains excepted, but don't start a game with less than 1/2 of a timer)
     
  5. slowreflex

    slowreflex Goblin Champion

    I agree with the Leagues element. On Ranked, does anyone know enough about MMR and probabilities to actually work out the statistical win rate needed on "definite losses" to make trying it worth it? i.e. Lets say you stay and play all those games you thought you would lose and manage to win 10% of them. How does that compare to winning 50% of the games you get to play with the extra time gained from surrendering those games you thought you would lose?

    Let's say it was 10 games you thought you would lose. I'm going to assume that at the point of knowing you are going to lose you are saving 5 minutes per game. So, that's 50minutes saved. Let's say that allows you to play 3 games and you win 50% of them. So you have 1.5 wins and 11.5 losses (11.5% w/r). On the flip side, if you played out those 10 games and won 10% of them, you'd have 1 win and 9 losses (10% w/r).

    So, in this example, if you are winning more than 12% of the games you are sure you'd lose, then you are better off playing those games through. Don't under-estimate the power of RNG.

    It's too early for math, but I think that's right...
     
  6. Bandreus

    Bandreus Thaumaturge

    I think giving up at the start of a game is a big No-No in the majority of instances. Even in a context like the one described in this topic.

    First and foremost, you can't really know how a game is gonna wing, unless you play it. Maybe your opponent had an awful draft himself, or maybe he's gonna eventually make some severe mistake, turning an otherwise one-sided victory into a much fairer affair. You just can't be sure, and I think each and everyone on this boards could share several stories of achieving victory despite all odds. So while I can see the "Chances are against me anyways" philosophy to some extent, I still think that's not good enough a reason to insta-quit: play a few rounds and if you come to a point where it's absolutely clear you cannot win, resign then. Playing a few turns only takes seconds anyway, especially at the beginning of a game, so why not dip your toes into the waters before declaring their too cold for a bath?

    Just to be clear though: I'm not directly criticizing @Obernoob for evaluating the opportunity of early resignation. But since he's specifically asking when it would be okay to resign, this is probably a good place to talk about why early resignation is bad. I do feel like a lot of CHers don't fully understand why the devs felt like the game needed an official policy against early resignation to begin with.

    The general assumption, as far as I get it, is that the rule was intended to prevent "abusing the system". While that certainly factors into things somewhat, I think the human aspect is way more important here.

    I know that those prone to resigning early will probably not fully get this, but there's a ton of people who do not like it (or straight out hate it) when an opponent resigns at the start of a match or soon after it began. The chest screen at the end of the match is not the only point about a MP game, nor the most important. Some people actually care about playing the game, regardless the fact they would win or lose, or get a reward at the end of it. In that regard, what people might think would "save time", can actually end up wasting someone's else time instead.

    I do know I get mildly pissed when I've spent a couple minutes in the queue, only to see the victory screen pop-up a few seconds into the game. Let alone when I actually put the effort into drafting at the beginning of a QD match. And I know for a fact I'm not alone on this.

    To be honest, it always strikes me when people spend a lot of time and energy into explaining how resigning would be preferable, as it would save both players some arbitrary amount of time. Clearly, they assume every person values "time" in the exact same way, otherwise they would at least ask if it is okay for them to give up on a game even before it actually started.

    Which brings us to the point. Don't just assume your opponent is gonna be glad about the free-win. Actually try and be polite, and put a few seconds into explaining why you're resigning to your opponent. Something simple like "Dude, I got the worse draft ever, do you mind if I resign?". Doesn't take away a huge chunk of your life, potentially turns an unsatisfactory outcome into a more pleasant experience, and helps making the MP experience more enjoyable for all parties involved.

    TL;DR; Resigning is only really justifiable once it's very much a given a match cannot be won. Resigning early is very rarely justifiable. Insta-quitting is never justifiable, especially if you don't clearly speak out your intentions (and even then, knowing you can't possibly win a game by looking at the first-hand alone might still be unreasonable).
     
    Scarponi, Sir Veza and Mr. Magnifico like this.
  7. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    No worries, I dont feel critizised.

    Asking the opponent is fine with me. In the case of my match it was not much fun for me to play it out. For the opponent it may have been more fun, I dont know.
     
    Sir Veza and Bandreus like this.
  8. Fry

    Fry Ogre

    I can understand being frustrated if you've put in the effort to draft a good team and someone quits before the actual game starts. And if you feel you're being nice to someone by letting them actually kill your units rather than surrendering when the game is lost, that's your prerogative. But it's a very small gap from there to expecting that other people should let you beat up their units rather than surrendering, and it's unreasonable to expect others to indulge your sadism.
     
  9. Questor

    Questor Ogre

    When you start a QD match and the first things you think after realizing what race/class combinations you and your opponent got dealt are "This i can´t win." or more importantly "This is no fun." then just resign and go to the next one.
    There are some people who think that you should always play all games, all the time but you should not care about them. The moment you think that something is or will not be entertaining or fun in a game, you should not play.
     
  10. slowreflex

    slowreflex Goblin Champion

    I disagree. Sometimes people don't know what is fun until it slaps them in the face. Even if you think you might not enjoy a certain line-up, you might.
     
  11. When 3 wizards kill 2 warrriors in the first round.
     
  12. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    When 3 Warriors kill 2 Wizards in the first round. :p
     
    timeracers likes this.

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