Expand the time limit in ranked

[ZeknShooter]

I want to suggest you guys this because in ranked its unfair how a player in 1v1 ranked stall vs stall or balanced vs balanced, stall vs balanced, one of both players can kill 1 Pokemon and then stall time until is Min 60 were the match will end with the maximum battle points gained by the guy who won because was the maximum time even if the player who has 5 Pokemons alive and had more than 70% of their pp's to use against a person who had less.
This is unfair because the player who kills 1 of the 6 Pokemon's of the other can:
1) wait around 10 seconds and use a move (time stall)
2) recharge time and repeat
3) switching to save time into safespots, which in part is time stalling too (blissey switch to gatrodon for example)
all of this things can result in a unfair win and losing time making the player who was about to win naturally, play the match until the end because the illusion of at the end he will win, and also lose more elo than normal, and the player who won will win more.

 

Suggestion: Adding +20 Minutes at least, in Ranked Battles
 

[OrangeManiac]

I think that there should be a standardized time for competitive battles in PokeMMO for both tournaments and ranked battles. Having a standardized timer rule for all events makes sure that people can build the same kind of teams regardless of the environment games are played in, and standardized timer rules also prevent confusion among the player base. 

 

In my opinion 60 minutes is fine, having it any longer would make tournaments last unbearably long. Also having a game lasting up to 60 minutes is clearly an indication that conserving PP has become a win condition in this battle, and such battles can potentially last up to 3 hours (there has been multiple known games like that). That's why adding additional 20 or so minutes will not most likely conclude the battle naturally and just makes everyone else having to wait even longer for no reason.

 

Also, I don't think you can necessarily say that playing for timer win is an unethical way to win a battle. If you accept that the timer is part of the game, you end up choosing the best moves to make sure you're leading when the time ends. I don't think this is any different than in any sports like football for example - you get a comfortable lead and start to play extremely defensively until 90 minutes is on the clock. I don't see anyone complaining about that.

 

[XelaKebert]

49 minutes ago, ZeknShooter said:

Suggestion: Adding +20 Minutes at least, in Ranked Battles

I think a better solution is that the system should not declare a winner and mark the match as a draw awarding 1/2 the value of points to both players. There are too many factors for the system to be able to account for and doing this in ranked matchmaking undermines the very reason staff weren't allowed to declare a winner in tournaments where a matched was terminated due to running over the time limit.

 

Something else that could also be better is that, as the match gets closer to the 60 minute mark, your chess timer should allow for less time to pick a move and actively encourage players to make moves that position the duel to reach a decisive conclusion.

 

Edit:

I should clarify the reason I say this. Adding more time does not encourage players to make decisions that lead the match to a decisive outcome but rather gives them more time to play with. If you start taking away time from their chess timer the pressure gets placed on them to move the match to a finished state or risk losing due to time out. With a chess timer it's harder to argue that you could have won a match when you ran your time out. If a player is forcing you to run your timer so low that it runs out, then that player could be logically said to have won. There is a caveat that some players abuse the chess timers, but even still it's harder to argue against the system when you chose to run your timer out rather than keeping the match moving and it's not fair to declare the other player with time remaining to be at a loss simply because there were moves you could have made. If you could have made a move that could have tipped the match in your favor and didn't then you are still at fault for not doing so. So removing time from the chess timers is the best all around solution as it solves issues with players abusing the move timers and this one by putting the pressure on them to actually make their moves.

Edited September 24, 2020 by XelaKebert

[ZeknShooter]

@OrangeManiac In matches were both players will play nice its fine but in matches were one of both players will stall time in order to win its not fine.
I'm suggesting exactly 80minutes as a time limit because will consume what those players do in order to win because they had more Pokemon's alive
and less time its better for people who play stall because they have more pp's and less probability to lose a Pokemon, this is just a hotfix for everyone,  in those duels the people can't even make enought plays to do a comeback because the time limit, assuming you lost 1 of 6 in +30 Minutes

[EricRasp]

5 hours ago, ZeknShooter said:

In matches were both players will play nice its fine but in matches were one of both players will stall time in order to win its not fine.

Why is it not fine? It is just another way to win. Haven't you heard of 'War of Attrition'? If I had a chance to win by stalling you bet I'm going to go for it and so will everyone else and so will you. 

[Raichuforyou]

I'm a firm believer that if your matches are going over sixty minutes and you want more time to potentially make a comeback, you are engaging more in stall than you probably think you are. 

[XelaKebert]

5 hours ago, ZeknShooter said:

I'm suggesting exactly 80minutes as a time limit because will consume what those players do in order to win because they had more Pokemon's alive
and less time its better for people who play stall because they have more pp's and less probability to lose a Pokemon, this is just a hotfix for everyone

If the system just chooses a winner after time expires it's still inherently flawed. You are just giving players who do this more time to work with.

 

22 minutes ago, EricRasp said:

Why is it not fine? It is just another way to win. Haven't you heard of 'War of Attrition'? If I had a chance to win by stalling you bet I'm going to go for it and so will everyone else and so will you. 

Knocking out a single Pokemon does not automatically mean you should be the winner as there is a chance that the other 5 could still handle the rest of your team. It's not a War of Attrition, that is something where both sides give and take. Think battles where soldiers on both sides lined up and shot at each other until one side broke.

 

What I suggested as an alternative would be objectively better. It's a two pronged approach.

1) All matches that reach time limit are draws and award half points

Draws are a net negative in rankings as the primary sorting is wins > losses > draws so a player with the same number of wins and more losses would rank about someone with a draw. Players who are forced into a situation where the worst case scenario is going to be a net negative for them anyway then they are more likely to actively avoid getting into that situation.

2) Past a certain point, 40-50 minutes maybe, the system should make the time to make a move shorter and shorter. As an example, if a player as 1.5 minutes left on their timer past 40 minutes the system sets their time left to 80 seconds. As the time in the duel progresses time gets taken away at a rate of like 10 seconds per 5 minutes over threshold until the time remaining is down to 10-15 seconds to make a move.

When a player who is time stalling with the intention of making the duel a draw they are leaning very heavily on their personal chess timer so taking the crutch away from them means that if they want to play stall they will have to be more creative than that. The point being that past a certain point the players should be highly encouraged to end the duel with a decisive conclusion rather than an unclear one.

[TohnR]

Why is Orange always so right about everything...

[ZeknShooter]

@Raichuforyou if you want to talk about stall i have a very nice examples just right in the top ladder, top 5's using stall right now, but thats not the thing here, i already said that, i'm not suggesting 120+minutes time limit which are 2 hours im suggesting +20 minutes because with the time clause the players cannot use properly their teams if they will be time-stalled.

@XelaKebert I like your opinions but I think you still do not understand what I explained before, I hope anyway that it will not happen to you soon in the game. In matches when in your, around 30 minutes you noticed that you could actually win but the other player stalls you using the strategy that i already explaned until he wins.

[XelaKebert]

7 hours ago, ZeknShooter said:

I like your opinions but I think you still do not understand what I explained before, I hope anyway that it will not happen to you soon in the game. In matches when in your, around 30 minutes you noticed that you could actually win but the other player stalls you using the strategy that i already explaned until he wins.

I understand fully what you are saying, hence the proposed alternatives. The issue with adding more time is that players who win by time stall could get a larger payout from doing this on top of getting a bump in rankings. Making it so they take a hit in rankings and payout means that time stalling becomes less viable while still allowing stall tactics to be as viable as possible. In order to make adding a draw category worth it, you also need to add time penalties so that players are encouraged to build to win by full KO or forfeit.