Judges can usually tell when you are intentionally stalling. As of PAX East, the rule is judges can issue a warning, and after that if they feel you are still stalling you are disqualified at the judges discretion.
We have discussed a chess-clock extensively, and while it would fix the stalling problem, it creates a lot of its on logistical problems and is very clunky for a game like Tactics. Going forward, judges are going to be much more aggressive about ensuring that teams play more quickly, which tends to work well in our experience without adding a bunch of overhead.
Chess clocks work great for chess because it's 2 players and the duration of your turn is entirely up to you.
Tactics has 6 players and the other team does stuff on your turn (rolling defense most often, but potentially lots more, like rolling attacks and making decisions). It's not as straightforward.
I for one hate gameplay-changing exclusives for a select few lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. Non-gameplay goodies are fine, but if you're restricting the availability of part of a game, that sucks. Even having to wait a month feels like it's unfair to those of us who can't get to appropriate conventions.
And if someone hosts a tournament, they won't be playing in it and thus won't be eligible for the promos anyway.
The problems with a chess clock are why I would love to see not a hard time limit style chess clock, but a board shrinking style of clock that would also push the action into a tighter spot.
Frankly I hate the tie breakers, matches running out of time tied are crappy, and it happens a significant portion of the time.
I'd love for that to go away, and a shrinking map could really work for that.
I like the idea of a shrinking board but it's not without its problems. Long range fighters (particularly The Wraith) could be at a disadvantage.
What if instead of punishing slow play, we could somehow reward quicker play? Some random ideas..
- Connecting some portion of the prizes to the winner's (or the collective's) speed of play
- Preferential seeding for faster teams
- Some small yet tangible advantage in the next match, e.g. the previously faster team automatically wins the coin toss, or gets a better chance of winning it
But just you can put other slower characters (AbZero?) at a disadvantage that way too while giving even more incentive to Tachyon (who really doesn't need it).
I don't think he means faster characters.
Yes, I'm talking about speed of play, not movement speed or anything like that.
Example: if a match between Team A and Team B takes 30 minutes, and a match between Team C and Team D takes 45 minutes, then Team A and Team B would receive some benefit. Or the collective of teams would receive a collective benefit for a lower average time across the tournament. Or something.
A collective benefit could be something like: the prize purse is $500 + 10 * (30 - X) where X is the average match time across all matches. So it's in everyone's interest to play quickly, because it makes the prize bigger. An average of 20 minutes would increase the prize by $100. An average of 40 minutes would reduce the prize by $100. My numbers are made up and would need to be figured out more carefully, of course.
I know exactly what he meant. But whats the best way to speed up your game? Use faster characters. Tachyon can make games go pretty quick, not because she is fast, but because she can potentially score 2 incaps in a single (well, really a double) turn.
This discussion has an assumption that faster play is desired. If you want to challenge that assumption that's fine, but please challenge the assumption directly - not the points of the discussion that follow from it.
My favorite kind of tweaks are small ones that have non-direct effects that help accomplish the goal. Suppose that the coin toss is automatically won by the team who scored more points in their previous match (if tied or no match, it's a real coin toss). Then there's a small but tangible benefit to winning a game on points instead of on a tie breaker, which likely leads to faster play.
The Chess-clock idea was not proposed in order to achieve faster play times. That might be the result but I don't think thats the goal here. It was proposed as a solution to possible attempts at teams intentionally stalling out time (which keep in mind is something that has not been an issue so far).
I don't think there is anything wrong about games running close to the time limit if the pace of actions and turns has been steady.
Fair enough. Mainly I'm thinking about ways to do that which are rewarding instead of punitive - so it's more valuable to you to not-stall than to stall.
Logistically difficult, but perhaps having a time limit on making a decision. I believe professional tennis has something like this. You only have a certain amount of time between the end of the last point until you must serve the next. For Tactics, at any point when you must make a decision (choose next action, choose target of attack, choose where to move/sprint) you would have a certain number of seconds. Unfortunately, tracking this would be quite difficult. You'd basically have to have one, if not multiple, people with a stopwatch.
I imagine the way to implement this sort of time limit is much like Paul et. al. already have in mind -- being aggressive about people stalling. Make it known that there are time limits, but only start tracking them if a team seems to be taking a long time regularly. Perhaps penalize people with missed actions or loss of HP?!
Having a chess clock that determines when your side of the map shrinks would reward faster play by not pushing you forward, eliminate the need for tie breakers and settle the game with on map play.
Long range heroes are naturally strong in the early game, as are heroes like Tachyon that can hit and run, or at least close the gap to the enemy really fast. If Wraith was on a slow team she would be pushed forward faster than she would like, but most of the time targets that like to hide in the back would be pushed forward into the fight.
It would weaken Unity for that reason, I don't think we have any other heroes as averse to closer ranges, and her kit can survive that kind of change, you would just also have to protect Unity, which can be done.
There are other ways to do it, but after the broadcast mentioned the mist storm and a chess clock, I thought of this, and it has potential.
I understand the need to penalize people abusing the rules. However, I really don’t understand the idea of rewarding faster play. You get rewarded for thinking through things faster? Or do you get rewarded for not thinking through everythIng. I don’t think either of these cases are something to be rewarded.
As was said before, a judgement call by the ref seems to be the best way to go.
If the tournaments are intended to replicate tuesday night at the flgs, then I agree leave them as is.
I think they are more ambitious than that. Having these tournament games show off the game is a great way to advertise, but not when they make the game look slow and unsatisfying, with teams arguing for ten minutes and matches running out of time frequently.
The problem isn't just cheating, it is showing the game properly, teaching people to play this game at its best, not its worst, and building a good competetive team base that can help tactics become a significant franchise, by making it something people watch and want to be a part of.
I guess I disagree on best to show it off. When people see clocks or the sort, it really adds to the intimidation factor. I think, where the game is now, getting more peolle involved at a casual level, and the feeling that anyone can compete in a tlurnament is more important. Most people in the tournaments now are casual players.
Also, most reviews for the game say how light it is. Showing off the thoughful process can really show how much of a competitive game it can be.
While getting others involved is important, you also want to keep the current players. If someone feels they lost because they are being pressured, or because the sudden death rules favor the other team, it can be very negative for the competitive play, especially with a cash prize.
I do think that at some point maybe something like this can be implemented, but not anytime soon.
I play another minature game called warmachine. Most friendly games amoung friends we have no clock. but for tournaments, they have deathclock. Depending on the size of the force, you have a total amount of time to do all your stuff. I think you could set this up, so both teams have so many minutes to make all there decisions. If your team runs out of time, the other teams get a incap. Less likely to have to do a tie breaker, and running out of time would not automatically lose you the game. In warmachine, there is no reward for playing fast, but a penalty to playing slow. As long as you play at a average speed, you should not run out of time. you could give each side 25 minutes, which in theiry means the longest the game will be is 50 min which i think in the current time limit? Whatever is decided, it should not reward faster play, but makes sure everyone moves about the same speed for decisions. Some of the games, it looked like one team had 3/4 of the time used on them, which means if the other team is considering time, they do not have as long to play.