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I kinda agree.  I think its silly that we give less points for time-out wins, and I would love to see turtles be more viable, not having to worry about timing out all the time.  But on the other hand, I know I'm pretty zoned out at the end of just a district tournament (and was absolutely useless the last few rounds of T1 2-player at Natz), so I don't really want to encourage games timing out all the time.

I guess what I'm saying is I like the idea in theory, but I don't know that I want time outs encouraged in practice.

Quote from: Drrek on May 18, 2013, 10:13:04 PM

I kinda agree.  I think its silly that we give less points for time-out wins, and I would love to see turtles be more viable, not having to worry about timing out all the time.  But on the other hand, I know I'm pretty zoned out at the end of just a district tournament (and was absolutely useless the last few rounds of T1 2-player at Natz), so I don't really want to encourage games timing out all the time.

I guess what I'm saying is I like the idea in theory, but I don't know that I want time outs encouraged in practice.

I think it's a given that in almost every round when there's 30+ games going on, there will be at least one time out game, regardless of anything that encourages it. I don't see a rule change like this making much of a difference there.

That's true for natz, but at lower level tournaments, it might not be.  Like I said, I like the idea, I just kinda dread being a tournaments if rounds are timing out all the time.

I don't know why Turtle decks keep getting mentioned. They generally come from behind to win, and thus would lose outright when time ends.

That said, I'm totally behind this rule change. Makes points so much easier. It doesn't encourage stalling any more than the current system--it's all dependent on the situation.

We already have rules in effect to ensure timely play. I don't think I've ever played with a turtle player (in real life or on RTS) who intentionally played slow to gain some kind of advantage. In fact, the two people I've seen play turtles most often (Jordan and Underwood) both play well within the regulated time restraints. I think anyone competitive enough to play dirty like that won't be using a turtle to begin with.

Quote from: Chris on May 18, 2013, 10:41:52 PM

We already have rules in effect to ensure timely play.

Agreed. But with the rule change that is being suggested it is possible that a player may utilize the entire turn time limit and or push the limit of what is considered timely play.

Quote from: Chris on May 18, 2013, 10:41:52 PM

I think anyone competitive enough to play dirty like that won't be using a turtle to begin with.

A competitive player may use all legal play to his/her benefit whether you consider it dirty or not.
A competitive player may use all legal play to his/her benefit whether you consider them a competitive player or not.

All I'm suggesting is that this COULD have more ramifications than originally thought or considered. Just look back in the Errata section at the cards there. What was the original intent and what actually happened with them. Just some food for thought.

Godspeed,
Mike

The suggested rule change is not changing anything that has to do with timing.  It's just suggesting that a time out win receive the same amount of points as a regular win.  People who stretch time to win are already doing that to get the time out points.  I doubt it will change much.

Also:

a time out will not be the fault of the winning player, it will be due to playing an inexperienced player, who won't recognize cards at a glance, and will need to take time reading and understanding them.

Or it could be the fact that the player actually enjoys playing defense instead of speed.  My favorite things to build are defenses.  For my Natz deck (many moons ago), I made a Judge sitelock deck.  The biggest tactic of the deck was to lock them out, put my 1/1 judge in judges seat, and pick off their defense one turn at a time until they have no one left.  I did time out 1/2 of the game but not because I was inexperience or didn't know my deck.  I timed out because my deck was build for a century instead of a quick ten mile ride (think cycling).

Maybe we can bring in the clocks that chess players use.  Give each player two minutes per turn.  If they ever go over, their opponent has the option of calling the judge over, explaining the situation, and if the judge agrees that the player is stalling, would give the opponent a free lost soul.  That would severely discourage "turtle players".

I just started a new topic on this but I thought I might as well continue this one because it keeps all arguments in one thread. I have not personally encountered this problem myself, however, my brother has twice. Once, it would've won him Nats but instead he got 2nd or 3rd and the other was at NE regionals where he would've probably got 2nd or 3rd compared to 5th or 6th because he was 4-1 winning 2 timed wins. And his loss was against the guy who got first. I don't think this is really a just system and that it really wouldn't hurt the game to fix it.

Hey,

Most people think of the win condition for a (type 1) Redemption game to be "Rescue 5 lost souls before your opponent does."  But in a tournament situation that's not really the case.  When we implemented the time limit back in 2001 we effectively changed the win condition to "Rescue 5 lost souls before your opponent does and before 45 minutes have elapsed."  When you look at it that way, a player that is winning at time out should not receive credit for achieving the win condition because they didn't.

Redemption has always been designed for the defense to be able to win battles, but the Heroes should win out in the end.  In a tournament setting that means that games shouldn't time out.  Time outs do happen when players play more defense than intended, lost souls aren't adequitely available (either through soul drought or lockout), or players play slowly.  Some players like to play a lot of defense (myself included to some extent), and we leave the task up to them to balance between using more defense and still rescuing enough souls before the time limit.  If we find that too many players are leaning towards using a lot of defense we may want to alter the way we design future cards to compensate, but at present that is far from the case.

I have noticed that it feels like more games are timing out now than they used to.  Maybe that means players are using more defense.  Maybe that means defense is better at holding out a little longer than it used to.  Maybe it means that my observational experience is skewed.  (On that last point I would be very interested in other players thoughts from various parts of the country if games are more likely to time out now than in the past.)

With regard to annecdotal evidence, keep in mind that a player that gets a timeout win is then "sorted" below players that got full wins and means they will be playing the "worst" winners, other people that timed out, and even in some cases the "best" loser.  As a result they are in theory facing weaker competition than the players that are getting full wins.  So if they got full points for winning at time out they would have faced better competition in remaining rounds and might not have had the same results.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Most people think of the win condition for a (type 1) Redemption game to be "Rescue 5 lost souls before your opponent does."  But in a tournament situation that's not really the case.  When we implemented the time limit back in 2001 we effectively changed the win condition to "Rescue 5 lost souls before your opponent does and before 45 minutes have elapsed."  When you look at it that way, a player that is winning at time out should not receive credit for achieving the win condition because they didn't.

I would argue that more often than not, a time out win is not the fault of the player who wins. As I noted in the original post, sometimes it's the fault of an inexperienced player who doesn't recognize cards at a glance (something I fear we'll see a lot with the cards being released so late), sometimes it's the fault of a ruling question that takes time to answer (especially because there's no system in place to pause the clock when something like this happens), and sometimes it's just one of the people involved is a slow player. I'm not saying that it's never a good player's fault, but at least in my own experience (inb4PEMN), any time outs or near-time outs I've encountered have been the fault of the other player or circumstances beyond our control. Why should I be penalized for something that isn't my fault?

At the last MN Nationals, I played with a 154-card defense-heavy deck, and I believe I had 3 timeouts. My entire intention with the deck was to play as quickly as possible to have my opponent deck-out, so my turns were frequently under 30-seconds long. However, I played multiple opponents who played a much slower game, and I'm not sure for some if my defense was confusing/scaring them, or just causing them to think more than against a normal deck, or if they were just slower players. I have another idea that I'd really like to try, but I'm hesitant to use a large deck or defense-heavy deck because it seems like my opponents play slower when I do. I would definitely like the opportunity to score the full 3 points for a time-out win (and would be willing to score 0 for a time-out loss) since it would increase the likelihood of doing well with one of these types of decks.

HOWEVER, I also understand that the purpose of the game is to redeem souls, so I do see that as a good reason to provide a better win to someone who completes the objective. I believe that 2 of my 3 games would have finished with a winner with just 5 more minutes available, and I don't remember the situation in the 3rd. Would a few more minutes be a better compromise?

In that vein of thought, I think it should be made much more clear how long the rounds are supposed to be and enforced more strictly throughout the country. I have seen multiple situations where an extra 15 minutes was given per category because the tournament guide gave the longer times to help people estimate how long to plan for categories. This makes a very big difference, and while it's not a big deal (perhaps) at a lower-level tournament, playing with a 1-hour time limit for Type 1 2-player all year and then hitting a 45-minute time limit at Nationals could really throw someone off who was playing the type of deck I like and wasn't aware the time limit was supposed to be 45 minutes.

Those are my thoughts.

Well the fact of the matter is that winning timed would be not quite as good because your differential would probably be lower because you didn't rescue all five.

Adding on a few more minutes could be used but I think that might just add more intentional stalling (which I have seen and is one of the problems I'm trying to hit) and would not completely fix the problem.

Thanks for your thoughts though Ken, they are much appreciated.

I agree with Ken that an extra 5 minutes for the time limit would be good for T1, and might be better than the full points for timeout idea. I too find that most of the games where I timeout could end in ~5 extra minutes.

This is my experience too.

Intentional stalling is non-existent in this part of the country, at least in the many tournaments I've hosted and attended. If you're seeing a problem with it, you should address the players who are cheating and inform the judges and hosts responsible for the event. We don't need to change the tournament scoring because of dishonest players in your region.

Hey,

I do find the five more minutes option intriguing.  But I can already hear the hosts complaining that it's hard enough to fit all of the events into a reasonable schedule as it is.  I also can't help but wonder, if we did add five more minutes, is there any reason to think that a year from now we wouldn't be saying the same thing?  If we bumped the time limit up 5 minutes (to 55 minutes at that point) most of my games that time out would finish.

If you get one time out, it may very well be because of who you played against.  But one time out win isn't enough to push a player out of the running for first.  If you get multiple time out wins that can make the climb to first place impossible, but at that point you have to start looking at yourself as part of the cause too.

If your opponents are taking 3 minutes to take a trivial turn you should call the judge over and ask them to watch the game because you feel your opponent is stalling.  To be fair, I think it is fairly common for players to play a little slower when their facing a deck with a sizable defense.  Since it is somewhat uncommon to see the player has a lot of different things to think about than they usually do and a lot more possible interactions to consider.

I do not think it's good for the game if a 154 card deck can consistently win tournaments.  I realize that's what a few people want to play but it's a detriment to the enjoyment of the playerbase as a whole.  (I also think it's not good for the game if a deck with basically no defense can consistently win tournaments.)

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly