Why the level-restriction to Super-Blitz?

[Ail]

What is the point of excluding half the player-base from this feature?
The level says nothing about how quick someone takes their turn.

[Benkyo]

So that people who are very new to the game/interface don't join games at a speed they can't handle, obviously. CGE are more concerned about giving new players a bad first impression than catering to super-blitz players who haven't even played the game yet.

One game took me from level 1 to 5. Level 15 is perhaps a bit high, but it shouldn't take anyone all that long to get to.

[Ail]

The whole reason why I didn't even start to play multiplayer before I had beaten all challenges below the red ones was because of the long waiting-times.

I would expect most people not even considering multiplayer against strangers before they feel somewhat comfortable in single-player.

The reason why I could get to level 15 in a reasonable amount of time was that I could play against higher-level players that gave a lot of XP. Now if the higher-level players all play Super-Blitz which the lower-level-players can't even join both sides will have significantly fewer games to join available to them.

I think that having this arbitrary apartheid between 15+ and below gives a significantly worse impression than realizing that you have to move fast in a game of the fastest setting. Chess.com doesn't prevent anyone from playing bullet-chess, if they want to.

Now I can host a game in super-blitz and when I ask in the lobby for people to join my game people can't see it. It's not like the people that are online and willing to play a game are super-many to begin with. But splitting the player-bases based on who can and who can't join the only speed I'm interested in seems like a really bad decision to me.

Many have asked for a higher speed. Never ever have I seen anyone to say "but please make it only available for Level 15+".

I dare you to show me any <15-player who says "I'm glad that I'm excluded from super-blitz because I wouldn't be able to handle it and need to be protected from accidentally joining such game."

It really upsets me when companies think that their customers want to be mollycoddled and are unwilling to take responsibility for their decisions. That almost feels like an insult.

[Benkyo]

I get that you are aggrieved, and I get that anyone who currently has an opinion that must be heard on the subject is likely to be a person that wants access to super-blitz games. I was merely explaining one fairly obvious aspect of the reasoning that presumably went towards the decision, because you originally framed your rant as a question. As an additional point, I imagine they wanted to avoid disruption of super-blitz games caused by high drop-out rates of new users.

[Ail]

And btw. an unstarted game that is set to "Manual Start" should automatically be deleted when the creator goes offline. The games list is completely littered with manual-start-super-blitz-games of offline-hosts who don't know that their game will persist in the list when they go offline.

Edit: Or at least put them at the bottom of the games-list/sort the games-list by average online-status of the players in it.

[The Matrix has you!]

Well, my third game and second time people afk and i'm just waste my time to this "game". Excellent... Instead 30 minutes for full game, I must wait all that afk people. Why? I don't understand why I can't play super blitz if im new? I must suffer several day in semi AI slow-mo-afk games??

[pösmunk]

I'm about to give up playing online games with strangers after the third try due to normal blitz having no blitz in it. Waiting up to 15 min per age and per player is not something I particularly like or have time for. :(

Edit: still trying to finish a 3-player "blitz" game. It has gone on for 2.5 h so far.

[The Matrix has you!]

Originally posted by pösmunk:

I'm about to give up playing online games with strangers after the third try due to normal blitz having no blitz in it. Waiting up to 15 min per age and per player is not something I particularly like or have time for. :(

Edit: still trying to finish a 3-player "blitz" game. It has gone on for 2.5 h so far.

Yes, its impossible to play that "BLITZ". Its looks like a nice joke. I want to play fast games, but every time i spent 2-3h for stupid and boring "games" with afk/offline people :( And after evey such game I want to stop play online...

[Ail]

Not having a real blitz-mode at launch was bad enough.

But releasing one with arbitrary limitations to who is allowed to use it, was a decision, that really should be reconsidered.

[See you Space Cowboy...]

I'm sorry but even enough high-level people run out of time. If you are new enough that you have to stop to read the cards, you will not be able to play with a 5min reserve.

You probably cannot relate to this, Ail, since you're an experienced player, who does not need to check what each card does while on a timer.

[Ail]

We are not talking about enforcing super-blitz on everyone we are talking about making it available to everyone!

You do understand that difference, right?

If someone wants to player slower time-controls they could still do it!

And by the way:

In chess a huge chunk of blitz- (5 minutes per player) and almost all bullet- (1 minute per player) games are decided by timeout. It's part of what "blitz" means: Making difficult decisions under time-pressure.

In that regard it is also a bit weird that someone who times out is replaced by an AI instead of being counted as resigned. Especially if it was a high-level player who set a good foundation for the top AI, which will then go on to win, creating a lose/lose-situation for everyone involved.

I think that whether or not players are replaced by AIs should be an option alongside with the level of that AI. The assumption that level equals skill simply is wrong.

[See you Space Cowboy...]

I really don't think you're understanding what is being said here, or maybe you just don't want to because you believe everyone should have freedom. The problem is that when the player runs out of time and is relegated to a Bronze bot, the game is very much out of balance and everyone's best strategy is to go military and pick on the baby.

In fact, I'm glad you bring up chess, since it can illustrate even better the example. You're not going to play blitz, especially bullet chess, if you don't know a good amount of theory.

Are you going to stop and figure out a closed sicilian with a 5-minute game timer if you don't know it already? What about the 9 moves of a main line Ruy Lopez? These are extremely common plays that you need to know how to respond to and you can't be scratching your head when someone plays c5 or Nbd2, or fall into a trap when you innocently play e4 expecting e5 or c5 and instead meet with d5, followed by Qxd5 for the first time in your life and all of a sudden you need to analyze the situation or you get into serious trouble.

If you understand chess you can even more understand why having prior knowledge is a requirement for playing fast games.

[Ail]

Originally posted by See you Space Cowboy...:

[...] because you believe everyone should have freedom

Well, of course. That was my point the whole time. Give the people the freedom pick the game-mode they want.

Originally posted by See you Space Cowboy...:

If you understand chess you can even more understand why having prior knowledge is a requirement for playing fast games.

No, it is not.
Prior knowledge is a requirement for having a chance to winning fast games against opponents that do have that knowledge.

If 2 players with an ELO of 800 want to go at each other in Blitz then they absolutely can do that.

The other important factor is that this game has a single-player mode. So you can't just assume that everyone below level 15 is a newbie who doesn't know what the cards do. All it means is they haven't played much multiplayer yet. And maybe the reason for that is because it's such a drag because the fastest available speed is still way to slow.

[Elwen]

Let me just chime in. You all brought up good points. Yes, the reason why there is a level restriction for the Super-blitz is to be sure that all players already have some experience with playing TTA online. But listening to you, we probably set up the entry level too high. Thanks for the feedback.
It is already possible to reserve a slot for any player in a super-blitz game, so if your friend is lvl 15 or higher you can play with him from lvl 1.
I am also sorry the hear about blitz games that dragged out for hours. I often add players who played fast and I had fun time playing with them to my friend-list to prevent such experience, but I understand that a optimal game speed choice could be easier solution for many.
Anyways, thanks for the feedback, we will look into it.

[evilcherry]

people going afk or participating in too many games is a problem in 3-blitz.
4 blitz really stopped you from doing anything else besides sitting in front of the computer but sadly I'm not good enough to play on that level unless I'm super awake that day.

[Furley]

Originally posted by Elwen:

Let me just chime in. You all brought up good points. Yes, the reason why there is a level restriction for the Super-blitz is to be sure that all players already have some experience with playing TTA online. But listening to you, we probably set up the entry level too high. Thanks for the feedback.
It is already possible to reserve a slot for any player in a super-blitz game, so if your friend is lvl 15 or higher you can play with him from lvl 1.
I am also sorry the hear about blitz games that dragged out for hours. I often add players who played fast and I had fun time playing with them to my friend-list to prevent such experience, but I understand that a optimal game speed choice could be easier solution for many.
Anyways, thanks for the feedback, we will look into it.

Sorry to necro this thread, but it looks like this still hasn't been addressed. At level 4 I don't really want to grind to level 15 playing 3 hour+ "blitz" games because someone has to use every second of their reserve time. In an otherwise great digital adaption of a board game this is the one thing that keeps me from playing.