How long should tournament games be?

[Fingalen]

We usually play with clocks in Czech/Slovak tournaments, usually 65-75min/per player + 20-30min for paused clocks (deployment, between turns, ruling with the judge). If the time runs out for a player, they can still flip for defenses and cheat and use the passive abilities, but they cannot activate their models. Clocks run for you during your activation, unless you decide, it takes too long for your opponent and tap over.

There are usually very few games, when only one player runs out of time and there is only a few minutes left for the faster player to end their last activations and talk over the results.

There are still several problems that occure quite often:

- some players are not used to clock or they are stressed and forget to tap it over which often means the more experienced player plays on their time (often unintentionally), most players that are used to clocks just remind it or tap it over if opponents forget

- sometimes, players forget to unpause clocks at the beginning of turns and/or agrees on not playing with clocks any longer (which is generally okay, if both agree).

- deployment+paused clock time take far more than expected and both players have to finish their games with spare time on their clocks

But despite all these problems, there is general agreement that clocks help faster play even if players have to play suboptimally and with more mistakes. Psychological aspect of clocks is very strong and if I see I am losing 10-15 minutes to my opponent a always try to rush my less important activations. In my experience, if the clocks are present I tend to finish all the games (or get to the 5th turn at least), if they are not, my game often end in turn 3-4, very rarely longer.

 

[Scoffer]

Russian meta reporting: tournament games are usually 2,5 hours, 3 hours for novice-friendly or "out-of-town" events (when gaming, eating and sleeping areas are in the same place and games can start earlier/end later). Average number of turns played is 4, about 50% of games are completed in time.

As a TO I'm thinking about increasing round length to 2:45 and making breaks shorter. It will not help those, who are unable to begin turn 4 in 2,5 hours, but the rest will have more chances to complete the game in time.

I don't like the clock thing and the more I read about it here the less I like it. Malifaux is a complex game with a lot of things to concentrate on, and it seems like the clock is disturbing, makes gaming experience less  comfortable and less fun. I don't want to make bad moves just because I'm running out of time and can't afford to think about my last activations properly (I have a lot of other reasons to make bad moves). 

[Maniacal_cackle]

8 hours ago, malyzubor said:

 

But despite all these problems, there is general agreement that clocks help faster play even if players have to play suboptimally and with more mistakes. Psychological aspect of clocks is very strong and if I see I am losing 10-15 minutes to my opponent a always try to rush my less important activations. In my experience, if the clocks are present I tend to finish all the games (or get to the 5th turn at least), if they are not, my game often end in turn 3-4, very rarely longer.

 

In my experience, if both players have been working on playing to finish 5 turns, they will finish 5 turns.

Sounds like in your meta, chess clocks have that effect. Very cool!

[Cranky Old Man]

I cant see it getting accepted here in Sydney. There are those players though who take forever to get an activation done. Its fine on a weekend where you have the time to play more than 3 hours but its frustrating at a tournament when you get to turn three more than 50% of the time. As a result in a tournament I am more likely to take schemes I know I can get the first point easily but the second may not be. I am not sure what the answer is. There was a player in the area that we termed as glacial in his games. He might only get to the end of turn because he is dithering. Its very disappointing when you lose a place in the tourney because you didn't generate enough VP over the course of the tournament.

[Fingalen]

19 hours ago, Scoffer said:

I don't like the clock thing and the more I read about it here the less I like it. Malifaux is a complex game with a lot of things to concentrate on, and it seems like the clock is disturbing, makes gaming experience less  comfortable and less fun. I don't want to make bad moves just because I'm running out of time and can't afford to think about my last activations properly (I have a lot of other reasons to make bad moves). 

You are obviously a good player, that is able to finish most of your games in time without the external pressure that would force you into suboptimal decisions. When two such players meet, there is no need for clocks, sure. But if you had to decide between finishing games with some bad decisions or not finishing them at all, would you prefer the latter?

I am personally quite dissapointed with the players attitude to take crews and schemes, that are able to to score 3VP on turn two and expect the game to last to turn 3-4 at most. I am also very unhappy when there are last 10-15 minutes announced and it is tactically better to stall the game for opponent (e.g. by taking some irrelevant activations, that just take some time) and they do it, or they generally play more slowly than me at that moment. Clock usually solves this situation very well.

[Scoffer]

9 minutes ago, malyzubor said:

When two such players meet, there is no need for clocks, sure. But if you had to decide between finishing games with some bad decisions or not finishing them at all, would you prefer the latter?

In fact my games on top tables often last only 4 turns. When opponents are equally skilled and none of them is dominating the field, thinking, planning and trying to predict opponent's plans takes a lot of time especially on the last turns. To avoid frustration we check time at the beginning of the turn and agree that it's gonna be the last one if it's only 15-20 min left.

To prevent stalling on the last minutes on my events I announce "15 minutes left" and when it's 5 minutes left "finish current activation, then each player can take one more".

 

[Fingalen]

1 hour ago, Scoffer said:

In fact my games on top tables often last only 4 turns. 

And do you think this is equally okay for all the masters? Do you specifically pick those, that have better early game? There surely are some that struggle scoring on 2-3 turn, but are dominating the game in 4-5th. In addition, while DIF is a significant tiebreaker, player who finish 5 rounds often have a scoring advantage (and it does not matter, whose fault it was, that the game took longer).

[Scoffer]

41 minutes ago, malyzubor said:

And do you think this is equally okay for all the masters? Do you specifically pick those, that have better early game? There surely are some that struggle scoring on 2-3 turn, but are dominating the game in 4-5th. In addition, while DIF is a significant tiebreaker, player who finish 5 rounds often have a scoring advantage (and it does not matter, whose fault it was, that the game took longer).

I think masters with better early game always have an advantage, no matter how many turns the game lasts. But to be honest I don't know masters, that can't build a crew for early scoring. What master (except maybe YanLo and pre-nerf lucid Dreamer, that were designed to build advantage through the game) would you call a late-game dominator?

 

[Fingalen]

5 minutes ago, Scoffer said:

I think masters with better early game always have an advantage, no matter how many turns the game lasts. But to be honest I don't know masters, that can't build a crew for early scoring. What master (except maybe YanLo and pre-nerf lucid Dreamer, that were designed to build advantage through the game) would you call a late-game dominator?

I would say Hamelin, Jack Daw, Toni and similar gangs that rely on their durability a growing powers and are generally rarely taken (or successful) in tournaments (at least around here).

[solkan]

I don't know.  I'll admit that the last time someone asked me what the developers should do if they players can't finish a game on time, my response what "Nothing.  Not being able to finish the game on time should be a disqualifying offense, and let the players present their evidence to the local judge if they want to plead for leniency or a lighter sentence."  (Let the players keep playing to finish their game, and then keep playing in the time left, but if they can only finish 2 games in X hours when everyone else finishes three, they weren't going to score well anyway.)  Because whatever you do for scoring a partially played game is going to warp how things work.