Official forums for BZFlag.org

There has been quite a bit of conversation about the possibility of changing the length of matches. Please see the topic http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=7971 for some of the discussions that have taken place.

There is a plugin available to easily allow the length of matches to be changed before the countdown is started, and this could be put in place at the match servers.

Since this seems to be a hot topic, the council would like the players to cast their votes as to which options should be considered.

If you choose 'other', please let us know what you have in mind.

Thank you in advance for your feedback !

ops

i voted for 20min only, but by accident, should have been 15/20/30

not that it really mathers if you see the results, but oh well

birdie

I'v voted for 15/20/30 but think only two times should be available to avoid confusion.

So in reality I meant (15/30) / (20/30) but decided the option was close enough to not require voting other.

15/20/30. Thirty seems a little long, and 15 seems a little short, but depending on the situation, these are good times.

I voted 15/20/30. I think 15 might be a bit short, some players take 10 minutes or more to get warmed up. 20/30 sounds great.

I voted 15/20/30, because somtimes people dont finish a match because they don=t have timne and as bamf. said it somtimes takes 10 mins to warm up!

Hm...shorter match times can be interesting for some ppl...however...I'ld suggest that a team gets (or loses) only as many % of the points as long they played
30min > 100%
20min > 67%
15min > 50%

The more (time) you invest the more you get (or lose). :o)

<strayer>

hey tanks

i voted for 30 minutes only because i think a match is a match and has to be 30 minutes. i think this is some kind of rule.
would be the same if you cut a soccer match, witch is 90 minutes long, down to 60 or even 45 minutes.
next thing is that there might be long dicussions before every match how long to play... in this time it easily could be done in 30 minutes too.

see ya
lev

Well, I voted for 20 minutes. Simpler than offering several match lengths. granted, I had some matches where we could make the turnaround near the end of a 30 minute match. But the same can really happen with any match length.

my sugestion:
(0) The regularly match duration is 30 minuts. A match should take at least 15 minutes in any cases.

It end if:
(1) 1 team has 7 points lead
(2)the weaker team surrender
(3) the referee decide for abuse
(4) rules of the league are broken during match
(5) both teams agree before to match a shorter time.

If a referee is the same time a player, the opponents team has to agree for that referee before the match starts.

Ciao,
"15/20/30 minute matches, to be agreed upon by both teams before starting"
i think this one is the best solution.
Better, if is possible whit the server commands, declare first the match, 1 player for team, the decision, 15/20/ or 30 min.
Bye.

sussi wrote:my sugestion:
(0) The regularly match duration is max. 30 minuts. A match should take at least 15 minutes in any cases.

It end if:
(1) 1 team has 7 points lead
(2)the weaker team surrender
(3) the referee decide for abuse
(4) rules of the league are broken during match
(5) both teams agree before to match a shorter time.

If a referee is the same time a player, the opponents team has to agree for that referee before the match starts.

Ok, I change my answer to this. Great suggestion, Sussi!

I just want to stress that I think having 20 and 15 minute matches available is a bad idea, you gain no real advantage over just having one of them present since the extra five minutes is going to make almost no difference. All it's likely to do is foster more confusion.

I agree with Admirach, having 15 & 20 minute match limits, really makes no sense. It should be (15 OR 20) AND 30. As I said earlier, 20/30 makes the most sense to my scrambled brain.

bamf. wrote:I agree with Admirach, having 15 & 20 minute match limits, really makes no sense. It should be (15 OR 20) AND 30. As I said earlier, 20/30 makes the most sense to my scrambled brain.

i agree with you there

Why don't we just do the same as the open league is doing? Here's the open league site: http://openleague.org/index.php?link=home

They do a /timelimit and then do a /countdown. So you can set your timelimit depending on the situation. This is nice for when people don't have time for a 30 min match, but still allows that time limit.

The plug in and settings are easy to code in, its the officialization of the idea that is what's important. As for the the openleague, they really are a separate entity from the ducati league.

birdie wrote:

bamf. wrote:I agree with Admirach, having 15 & 20 minute match limits, really makes no sense. It should be (15 OR 20) AND 30. As I said earlier, 20/30 makes the most sense to my scrambled brain.

i agree with you there

I'd rather say 15 minutes, that would be great f.e. for rematches, when both teams are already warm. But well, those 5 minutes don't really matter, the important thing now is to make this happen, 69% of 46 look like a clear outcome (although 46 of 612 registered players is not that much, but i guess the percentages won't change importantly). To make most players happy, the plug-in could allow every time between 15 and 30 for example

15/20/30 is what I think. maybe all the way from 15 to 45 minute matches as well.

Maybe 15/30 at first and then the range could be extended if people still wanted to after the testing period.

I don't have any objections to different match times other than 30 min. For all I care is we could even have 10 minute matches. But I do feel the concept of a league watered down by adding an option for several match length.
I would rather see we settle on one match time, be it 10, 15 or 20 minutes (with a cap limit).
One criteria for match length should not be what gives you the best chance to win. If a match length is to short for a comeback, you could simply have a rematch.

Different match length will have an effect on the activity rating of a team, a higher activity rating does not necessarely mean that a team is more avtive.
So different match times gives confusion with how the matches should be rated. This is was noted already in a nother post.
Exampe: If we will have DMP's idea of an activity rating factor in team rating, arbitrary match length can give a distorted ladder which may be fixed by adding even more complicated rating schemata. For the seasonal ladder this is quite the same, though solutions for considering different match length is easier there, but still more complications than there should be.

if you want to do ONE matchtime, than take 30min. But in my eyes, letting the players decide (between 15 and 30 or 20 and 30 or 15,20 and 30) is a good thing to do. Of course all this has to be choosen in advance and not during the match. The cap limit is there to remove difficulties about that

Yeah, well.. I thought the point would be to boost activity as well, and looking at OpenLeague, where the match length can be decided freely, it has boosted activity (30 min matches feel long now, most often they are like 10 or 15 min and people play more because they don't have to reserve that 30 mins of their time for a match)

BUT, I think ducati league should still remain a bit more 'serious', so I'd go for choice between 15 or 30. I think under 15 can be a bit too short at least... 15 is better than 20 because it's like 'half match'.

birdie wrote:if you want to do ONE matchtime, than take 30min. But in my eyes, letting the players decide (between 15 and 30 or 20 and 30 or 15,20 and 30) is a good thing to do. Of course all this has to be choosen in advance and not during the match. The cap limit is there to remove difficulties about that

If 30 min for many is to long, what is the problem of lets saying, all matches are 15 minutes, no options. What is so special about 30 minutes?
I am just feeling the match length options may be in the way of future changes, changes which may have difficulties with proper handling of different match length.

30 min is a magical number (the league started with that and always had that), people played 30 min for years now. You aint gonna tell me in once every one thinks its to long and we have to use only 15 or 20min anymore.

But like i said, the option of letting players decide between 2 or 3 numbers is the best thing to do. (if we make the good agreement everything is decided before the match starts and not when 15min or 20 min are passed)