Unlimited Wait-Lists & Maximum Game Limit

[degaston]

Concise description:
Provide a way for players to set a maximum number of active games that they wish to play, then allow them to join as many unfilled games as they like. Once the number of active games reaches their set maximum, drop them from the wait-lists of all other games.

Specifics/Details:
Everyone has a limit to the amount of time they can spend here, and the number of active games they feel comfortable playing. In the case of freemium (unpaid) players, they are limited to 4. As it exists now, the "Join A Game" feature makes it very difficult for players to get optimal use from the site. Depending on what type of game you are looking for, there may be thousands of games waiting for players, but unless you find a game with only one open slot, you will have to choose one (or a few) to join and wait for it to fill. If you join too many, then when they all eventually fill, you will be overloaded with active games. If the ones you choose to join don't fill up quickly, you will be left waiting with fewer than your desired number of games, while other games that you would have been willing to play are filled. This is an even bigger problem for freemiums, who must be very selective about which games they join if they don't want to potentially wait a very long time for their game to start.

A solution to this would be:

• Provide players with a setting for the maximum number of active games that they want to play.
• Freemium (unpaid) players would be limited to no more than 4.
• Allow players to join the wait-lists of an unlimited number of games as long as they are below their maximum number of active games.
• When joining games, players should be allowed to specify whether it is a "priority" game that should not be dropped.
• When a player reaches their set number of active and/or priority games, the system should remove them from all other non-priority wait-lists they have joined.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:

• Games will start faster.
• More activity will increase satisfaction for both paid and unpaid members, which could lead to better member retention and more paid membership.
• If a separate setting for the maximum number of guide games were added, then this could solve the problem of people dropping out of the Society of Super Guides because they don't like getting overloaded with auto-joined guide games.

[Donelladan]

This is a very good idea. I can't see any disadvantage to it. And it would definitely help to improve game filling. Game filling really became a problem recently.
Whoever is responsible for that, stick it and make it 1st place in the to-do list.

[JamesKer1]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

[degaston]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

I'm not sure what you mean by preferred game, but in any case I don't think that this suggestion should affect anything or cause any problems that don't already exist.

Could someone tell me how things are handled now with respect to fremiums in tournaments. Are slots held back so that a fremium is always guaranteed to have enough open slots for any tournament he's entered in? If so, then the same thing would apply to this suggestion - slots set aside for future tournament games would count against his available slots, so he might not be able to join any wait lists even if he doesn't have four active/eliminated games. If there's some other problem your referring to, please describe it in more detail.

Any change always takes a little getting used to. When they join any wait list, fremiums can be given a message that they will be dropped from all other wait lists once they have four active games. I don't think that's much of a reason not to do this.

[JamesKer1]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

I'm not sure what you mean by preferred game, but in any case I don't think that this suggestion should affect anything or cause any problems that don't already exist.

Could someone tell me how things are handled now with respect to fremiums in tournaments. Are slots held back so that a fremium is always guaranteed to have enough open slots for any tournament he's entered in? If so, then the same thing would apply to this suggestion - slots set aside for future tournament games would count against his available slots, so he might not be able to join any wait lists even if he doesn't have four active/eliminated games. If there's some other problem your referring to, please describe it in more detail.

Any change always takes a little getting used to. When they join any wait list, fremiums can be given a message that they will be dropped from all other wait lists once they have four active games. I don't think that's much of a reason not to do this.

I should have explained that better, apologies. Forget my first point about preferred games, that can be avoided by simply not overloading. I was concerned that if you have 5 games on your wait list and one that you absolutely needed to join, then the one you needed to join may be dropped if your 4 slots filled.

Some autotournaments- especially those for community events- tend to not count against game count for freemium limits. However, all community tournament games and most autotournament ones do count.

[degaston]

...I was concerned that if you have 5 games on your wait list and one that you absolutely needed to join, then the one you needed to join may be dropped if your 4 slots filled.

Some autotournaments- especially those for community events- tend to not count against game count for freemium limits. However, all community tournament games and most autotournament ones do count.

I'm still unclear about what you're describing. What makes a game one that you "absolutely need to join"?

I haven't played in many tournaments, and I think the last time I did I was a premium, so I don't know how it is handled now. If you are a fremium, are you prevented from entering a community tournament if you don't have enough available slots for the number of games that the tournament needs? Once you're in the tournament, and some games end, are you prevented from joining more casual games if they would take too many slots that are needed for the next round of the tournament?

As far as I can tell, this suggestion would not require any changes to the way things are handled now. If you have available slots, then you can join the wait lists for as many games as you want. Once all of your slots are accounted for, whether it's active, eliminated or tournament games, you would be dropped from all wait lists.

If you still think there is some conflict, can you describe the exact situation you're talking about?

Edit: If you're talking about a situation like a doubles game with a friend that is much more important to you than some other games, then I see two solutions:
1. Don't join the wait lists of any other games until the one you really want to join has started.
2. Allow two types of wait-list joins. "Priority" joins that you don't want to drop - these would reduce your count of available slots, and "Optional" joins that you don't care whether you're dropped from them or not.

[JamesKer1]

Edit: If you're talking about a situation like a doubles game with a friend that is much more important to you than some other games, then I see two solutions:
1. Don't join the wait lists of any other games until the one you really want to join has started.
2. Allow two types of wait-list joins. "Priority" joins that you don't want to drop - these would reduce your count of available slots, and "Optional" joins that you don't care whether you're dropped from them or not.

^This is what I was thinking of. Apologies for making it so confusing

[degaston]

...
2. Allow two types of wait-list joins. "Priority" joins that you don't want to drop - these would reduce your count of available slots, and "Optional" joins that you don't care whether you're dropped from them or not.

It occurs to me that this feature could also benefit premium members. I would think that everyone has their own personal limit for the number of games they want to play at once. If premium members were allowed to set a maximum number of games, then they could join the wait lists for all the games that they are interested in without having to worry about being overloaded if all of those games go active. They should be able to adjust their maximum games setting at any time, and could also use the "Priority" or "Optional" joins to control which games are important to them.

[stahrgazer]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

If a freemium risks taking his last slot for a non-tourney game while waiting for a tourney game, that player already runs the risk of losing his place in his tournament; this suggestion doesn't change that.

What bothers me about this suggestion is all the expense of coding it for players who are not contributing to the costs of the coding.

This further idea fixes my concern.

It occurs to me that this feature could also benefit premium members. I would think that everyone has their own personal limit for the number of games they want to play at once. If premium members were allowed to set a maximum number of games, then they could join the wait lists for all the games that they are interested in without having to worry about being overloaded if all of those games go active. They should be able to adjust their maximum games setting at any time, and could also use the "Priority" or "Optional" joins to control which games are important to them.

But that changes the idea from "allow unlimited wait-lists" to an ability to set priority and total desired games with the caviat that for free players the total desired games is not changeable.

The question is then, for premium players, are you saying that they should not be dropped from their "priority" games but would be dropped from the others once they reach their max? If they're not dropped from their "priority" games, they'd still potentially go over their max limit, wouldn't they?

On the other hand, I'd think that this is forcing the site to control what players should be controlling: how many games they try to join.

If there were 5 rather than 40 pages of unfilled games, maybe some games wouldn't take as long to fill.

[degaston]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

If a freemium risks taking his last slot for a non-tourney game while waiting for a tourney game, that player already runs the risk of losing his place in his tournament; this suggestion doesn't change that.

Does anyone know if this is definitely the way it works now?

What bothers me about this suggestion is all the expense of coding it for players who are not contributing to the costs of the coding.

As suggestions go, the programming effort required for this one should be very low (I am a programmer), and the benefit should be high in terms of encouraging activity on the site. And while fremiums aren't contributing monetarily, they are supplying a huge benefit to the site by providing opponents for the premiums. How dead would this place be if the fremiums were not here? And where will the future premiums come from if they don't do anything to make this site more active?

This further idea fixes my concern.

It occurs to me that this feature could also benefit premium members. I would think that everyone has their own personal limit for the number of games they want to play at once. If premium members were allowed to set a maximum number of games, then they could join the wait lists for all the games that they are interested in without having to worry about being overloaded if all of those games go active. They should be able to adjust their maximum games setting at any time, and could also use the "Priority" or "Optional" joins to control which games are important to them.

But that changes the idea from "allow unlimited wait-lists" to an ability to set priority and total desired games with the caviat that for free players the total desired games is not changeable.

The question is then, for premium players, are you saying that they should not be dropped from their "priority" games but would be dropped from the others once they reach their max? If they're not dropped from their "priority" games, they'd still potentially go over their max limit, wouldn't they?

How would they go over? Here's an example:
Suppose a premium player has 3 active games, and sets their maximum games to 8.
They could then sign up on the wait lists for 2 "Priority" games and 20 "Optional" games.
As soon as three of the optional games fill up, they would be dropped from all of the other optional wait lists.
Once their priority games fill up, they will have 8 active games, but will not go over that unless they change their maximum games.

On the other hand, I'd think that this is forcing the site to control what players should be controlling: how many games they try to join.

The point of this is that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for all players to get optimal use from the site. Fremiums have to choose between waiting for a game to almost fill before signing up, or potentially wasting time if they sign up for the wrong game that may take a very long time to fill up. Premiums can sign up for as many as they want, but if they do that, then they may end up with more active games than they want.

If there were 5 rather than 40 pages of unfilled games, maybe some games wouldn't take as long to fill.

I agree - this is a result of having so many possible combinations of maps and settings, which I think is mostly a good thing. A lot of these games could probably get filled if it were easier for people to indicate all of the games they would be willing to play, rather than forcing the fremiums to sign up only for the 4 games they most want to play, and forcing premiums to risk getting overloaded if they sign up for too many.

I submitted another suggestion (Game Matchmaker) that would be an even better solution, but it would take more coding effort.

[BigBallinStalin]

[OliverFA]

This is an amazing idea!

[Dukasaur]

Yes, agreed. This is a good idea.

[Metsfanmax]

What if there were a preferred game/tournament game that needed to be joined while you had more pending games than active slots? It would be difficult and confusing to code in a selection for this, and it may confuse new members on the "need" to buy premium

If a freemium risks taking his last slot for a non-tourney game while waiting for a tourney game, that player already runs the risk of losing his place in his tournament; this suggestion doesn't change that.

Does anyone know if this is definitely the way it works now?

Unless something has changed in the very recent past, community tournaments are not connected to the player's game load and never have been. The tournament doesn't know anything about how many games you currently have. That is why TOs always tell freemiums to make sure that they have enough game slots open for when the next round of the tournament starts. If they don't, they'll typically get dropped from the round, and there's no way the TO could have prevented you from joining too many games.

[degaston]

Unless something has changed in the very recent past, community tournaments are not connected to the player's game load and never have been. The tournament doesn't know anything about how many games you currently have. That is why TOs always tell freemiums to make sure that they have enough game slots open for when the next round of the tournament starts. If they don't, they'll typically get dropped from the round, and there's no way the TO could have prevented you from joining too many games.

If the "maximum games" feature was implemented, then it could be used by freemiums to save room for tournaments. They could set their max games to anything from 1 to 4. If they set it to 3, then they could still sign up on as many wait lists as they wanted, but they would be dropped from them once they got to 3 active games. That way, they would still have an open slot for their tournament.

I guess this changes my earlier comment about not being able to go over your max games limit. For premiums, I would assume that the max games setting would not prevent tournament games from being joined. For freemiums, they should be instructed to adjust their max games setting when they join a tournament.

[Metsfanmax]

Unless something has changed in the very recent past, community tournaments are not connected to the player's game load and never have been. The tournament doesn't know anything about how many games you currently have. That is why TOs always tell freemiums to make sure that they have enough game slots open for when the next round of the tournament starts. If they don't, they'll typically get dropped from the round, and there's no way the TO could have prevented you from joining too many games.

If the "maximum games" feature was implemented, then it could be used by freemiums to save room for tournaments. They could set their max games to anything from 1 to 4. If they set it to 3, then they could still sign up on as many wait lists as they wanted, but they would be dropped from them once they got to 3 active games. That way, they would still have an open slot for their tournament.

This would work. It's not the most elegant solution. But I would support this change if such a feature existed and were easy to use.

[degaston]

This would work. It's not the most elegant solution. But I would support this change if such a feature existed and were easy to use.

I thought about suggesting that the max games be adjusted automatically to reserve space when a tournament is joined, but I figured that was too much to ask for.

[JBlombier]

Great idea.

[degaston]

Updated the suggestion based on the discussion, and I realized that this could also help with the problem of people dropping out of the Society of Super Guides due to too many games being auto-joined.

[iamkoolerthanu]

I really like this idea, bumping it up so maybe 2 years later it can gain some more support?

This could really help waiting games to fill up, if the max games you want to play is 50 at a time, and your at 40 now, your going to keep a tight watch on the number of waiting games you have, because they can switch from waiting to active at any time, and you might only put 15 games waiting in your list. You don't want more than that to all the sudden fill up cause thats just your luck and then for the next few days your bombarded! But if you knew the waiting games would drop when you hit 50 or 55 or wherever you want set it, you could go and join 30 or 40 games, and then after the first 10-15 fill up, you don't have to worry

Anyone else want to give this their support year

EDIT: When was the game requests tab implemented? Because if this suggestion were implemented, it would be so much easier to us that request function, and you would know for sure how many games it would let you join. This is if I am understanding the requests tab properly

[degaston]

I really like this idea, bumping it up so maybe 2 years later it can gain some more support?

This could really help waiting games to fill up, if the max games you want to play is 50 at a time, and your at 40 now, your going to keep a tight watch on the number of waiting games you have, because they can switch from waiting to active at any time, and you might only put 15 games waiting in your list. You don't want more than that to all the sudden fill up cause thats just your luck and then for the next few days your bombarded! But if you knew the waiting games would drop when you hit 50 or 55 or wherever you want set it, you could go and join 30 or 40 games, and then after the first 10-15 fill up, you don't have to worry

Anyone else want to give this their support year

EDIT: When was the game requests tab implemented? Because if this suggestion were implemented, it would be so much easier to us that request function, and you would know for sure how many games it would let you join. This is if I am understanding the requests tab properly

The requests tab is somewhat similar to another suggestion I made (Game Matchmaker). It was done about 1 1/2 years ago, but the implementation was incomplete, and it wasn't promoted at all as far as I can tell.