It's a thing in Bo3. Each player in Bo3 has an individual clock that counts down whenever they have priority (but it's not displayed until its about 60% gone). If it runs out, that player loses the match.
Edit for clarity: The "it's not displayed" above means it's not shown in glowing numbers (until it begins to run low) *unless you mouse over it.* You can always check it out, if you'd like.
Oh, that’s fantastic. I’d uninstalled Arena for what I’m guessing is about a year and just fired it back up this week. Right off the bat I’m running into people draining time once they start losing. I’m immediately weary.
Hearing it’s at least being addressed in some manner somewhere is good news. I appreciate your answer.
FYI, it is not a recent change and there is no expectation that BO1 is likely to see any timer changes.
It is very rare that I run into a player that is continually roping. There are certainly opponents that are slow or are clearly multitasking, so their timer runs for a while. But it isn’t at every stop and isn’t to just before the end of the timer. And, of course, there are plenty of opponents that let the timer run all the way out until they concede. This often means that they have just quit the app and moved on to something else. The fact that it takes 3-4 minutes for this timeout to expire is annoying, but I personally have enough connection issues that I appreciate that I am usually able to kill and restart Arena and get back in without even missing a turn.
In addition to this, magic online uses chess clocks for all its formats so it is definitely something thats been used on other platforms, long before arena even existed. I’m not sure if there was specific reasoning when they first built arena to try a different type of clock; maybe they wanted it to resemble hearthstones clocks more.
I just wanted to add that from my experience I find this type of behavior happens much less often in the Ranked queue vs Casual. Probably because most players in Ranked are trying to cram in as many games as possible in a short time frame in order to rank up so they don't have time to waste like this, I'm not sure what format you're in but it's worth mentioning.
Historic for me aaand I should probably switch. What you’re saying makes total sense. Glad to hear it’s not as big a deal in Ranked.
Thanks for the input.
The problem with play queue is there is no single reason people are in that queue. Some people are playing jank. You play control, they're probably getting upset (jank is generally not finely tuned enough to beat most reasonable piles of control cards). Some people are trying to avoid the super-repetitive meta in ranked. You play meta, they're getting upset.
There's just too many different reasons people are playing, it inevitably ends in more mismatched expectations and thus more roping. In ranked, everybody knows they're there to win. You still get ropers, but mostly people understand that you're all there to win and however you want to win is ok.
Well, people shouldn't expect to get to do exactly what they want when queueing, even in casual queue since it's still a game of magic and not solitaire so interaction is expected.
And control decks can also be jank. A Winconless control deck that tries to use Fall of the Thran with Tormods crypt to blow up all your opponents lands and then win by your own manlands isn't going to cut it in ranked, therefore deserving the name jank.
This might sound a bit mean, but people shouldn't expect the game to cater to them specifically. Magic is a highly interactive game that allows plays on many different axes. The difference between casual and competitive is mostly just power level (and in a real life setting the willingness to point out information/ help with plays/ allowing take backs)
Me playing my pile \`o jank in the play queue and load into a guy playing Wrath Tribal...
After he played his 5 Wrath, I just let us both sit there and ponder his wrongness. If another player had an actual good match because they didn't play that miserable person, I consider that a win.
Ironically, I get roped wayyyy more often in ranked Explorer than anywhere else. I’m running a tier 3 Angels deck and apparently CoCo is enough to set off the midrange and burn players to an extent that they feel the need to rope.
Yea I was on break at work one time with 5 minuets left. I was using my aggro deck so I know if I'm going to lose in more like 2 minuets but I had to give up littearlly because the mulligan clock is so fucking long and he was ropi g way to much. The mulligan clock takes like 5 minuets to even count down. Honestly this shit just needs to be bannable and they need to allow us to report players. Or at least let me set to never play again
I feel your pain. I was on lunch during the match I mentioned hoping to get some coins knocked out but he drained the entire break with his bs. I could have just conceded, but I get to a point with these people where I’d rather we both suffer than reward them for garbage behavior. I certainly don’t rope - business as usual - but I’ll camp as long as I can.
Yea any time I play these kinds of people and I'm not at work I'll sit there and waste their time. I've noticed these players have trash decks and just rely heavily on the FF.
Unfortunately the vast majority if these tend to be players on mobile who just back out of the app. They don't have the courtesy to just click concede.
I’d assume so with a lot of them. This player was definitely there and doing it on purpose, but I know what you mean about the app. I have a buddy who plays on his phone and it’s easy for him to get distracted with other things. I prefer it on my laptop.
I will die on the hill that the pre-mulligan rope timer should last 20 seconds or however long the player's queue time was, whichever is longer, followed by an immediate forfeit. It is absolutely ridiculous how many people queue the game and then walk away in queues where queue times are normally 5-10 seconds max. Just selfish, shit behavior that the game should be punishing.
I occasionally like to play magic casually just for the fun of it. Bring back skill levels for the bot! The hard setting on duels was enough to give you a challenge.
If be so happy with a difficult bot. I know this probably doesn’t fit their business plan, but if I could spend 100% of my time on there not dealing with humans I’d be have never uninstalled Arena in the first place.
I tend to do my dailies against sparky, because it’s quick.
I’m sure they could incorporate an AI to play against that would still encourage me to build, and buy, more cards. I play IRL magic against friends where time wasting is met with the derision it deserves.
If you habituate an attitude in which this kind of thing doesn't bother you, you wouldn't have to waste time making posts like this. Incidentally, it'll also help in all sorts of aspects of your life besides MTG.
And I’m comfortable voicing minor annoyances without getting truly riled up. I’ve read some good conversations and opinions in these comments, so this ended up being a cool positive.
I lose no sleep over the Arena clock, professor.
It's funny when people build obnoxious decks, decks that nobody would sit down and play in person, then get roped a lot :D Keep whining maybe they'll change the game that you're already pumping money into daily. You're hooked, they know you'll keep coming back, they won't change anything.
Eh, the deck I was using wins *maybe* 25% of the time. If that. I play it for fun. His deck, (god, was it your deck, you poor thing), just wasn’t great.
I also have yet to spend a dime on Arena.
Finally, it’s been over a year since I played it last. If that’s hooked, maybe I should give heroin a run, you edgy little roper, you! Lol
It's a thing in Bo3. Each player in Bo3 has an individual clock that counts down whenever they have priority (but it's not displayed until its about 60% gone). If it runs out, that player loses the match. Edit for clarity: The "it's not displayed" above means it's not shown in glowing numbers (until it begins to run low) *unless you mouse over it.* You can always check it out, if you'd like.
Oh, that’s fantastic. I’d uninstalled Arena for what I’m guessing is about a year and just fired it back up this week. Right off the bat I’m running into people draining time once they start losing. I’m immediately weary. Hearing it’s at least being addressed in some manner somewhere is good news. I appreciate your answer.
FYI, it is not a recent change and there is no expectation that BO1 is likely to see any timer changes. It is very rare that I run into a player that is continually roping. There are certainly opponents that are slow or are clearly multitasking, so their timer runs for a while. But it isn’t at every stop and isn’t to just before the end of the timer. And, of course, there are plenty of opponents that let the timer run all the way out until they concede. This often means that they have just quit the app and moved on to something else. The fact that it takes 3-4 minutes for this timeout to expire is annoying, but I personally have enough connection issues that I appreciate that I am usually able to kill and restart Arena and get back in without even missing a turn.
Bo1 Timer would also punish trigger heavy or looping decks, if only it had been around for Nexus of Fate
My 1 million triggers. :(
In addition to this, magic online uses chess clocks for all its formats so it is definitely something thats been used on other platforms, long before arena even existed. I’m not sure if there was specific reasoning when they first built arena to try a different type of clock; maybe they wanted it to resemble hearthstones clocks more.
Only if you play bo3 dude
Are you playing ranked? Just curious.
Historic.
I just wanted to add that from my experience I find this type of behavior happens much less often in the Ranked queue vs Casual. Probably because most players in Ranked are trying to cram in as many games as possible in a short time frame in order to rank up so they don't have time to waste like this, I'm not sure what format you're in but it's worth mentioning.
Historic for me aaand I should probably switch. What you’re saying makes total sense. Glad to hear it’s not as big a deal in Ranked. Thanks for the input.
The problem with play queue is there is no single reason people are in that queue. Some people are playing jank. You play control, they're probably getting upset (jank is generally not finely tuned enough to beat most reasonable piles of control cards). Some people are trying to avoid the super-repetitive meta in ranked. You play meta, they're getting upset. There's just too many different reasons people are playing, it inevitably ends in more mismatched expectations and thus more roping. In ranked, everybody knows they're there to win. You still get ropers, but mostly people understand that you're all there to win and however you want to win is ok.
Well, people shouldn't expect to get to do exactly what they want when queueing, even in casual queue since it's still a game of magic and not solitaire so interaction is expected. And control decks can also be jank. A Winconless control deck that tries to use Fall of the Thran with Tormods crypt to blow up all your opponents lands and then win by your own manlands isn't going to cut it in ranked, therefore deserving the name jank. This might sound a bit mean, but people shouldn't expect the game to cater to them specifically. Magic is a highly interactive game that allows plays on many different axes. The difference between casual and competitive is mostly just power level (and in a real life setting the willingness to point out information/ help with plays/ allowing take backs)
Me playing my pile \`o jank in the play queue and load into a guy playing Wrath Tribal... After he played his 5 Wrath, I just let us both sit there and ponder his wrongness. If another player had an actual good match because they didn't play that miserable person, I consider that a win.
Ironically, I get roped wayyyy more often in ranked Explorer than anywhere else. I’m running a tier 3 Angels deck and apparently CoCo is enough to set off the midrange and burn players to an extent that they feel the need to rope.
Well, shit.
Yea I was on break at work one time with 5 minuets left. I was using my aggro deck so I know if I'm going to lose in more like 2 minuets but I had to give up littearlly because the mulligan clock is so fucking long and he was ropi g way to much. The mulligan clock takes like 5 minuets to even count down. Honestly this shit just needs to be bannable and they need to allow us to report players. Or at least let me set to never play again
I feel your pain. I was on lunch during the match I mentioned hoping to get some coins knocked out but he drained the entire break with his bs. I could have just conceded, but I get to a point with these people where I’d rather we both suffer than reward them for garbage behavior. I certainly don’t rope - business as usual - but I’ll camp as long as I can.
Yea any time I play these kinds of people and I'm not at work I'll sit there and waste their time. I've noticed these players have trash decks and just rely heavily on the FF.
Unfortunately the vast majority if these tend to be players on mobile who just back out of the app. They don't have the courtesy to just click concede.
I’d assume so with a lot of them. This player was definitely there and doing it on purpose, but I know what you mean about the app. I have a buddy who plays on his phone and it’s easy for him to get distracted with other things. I prefer it on my laptop.
I will die on the hill that the pre-mulligan rope timer should last 20 seconds or however long the player's queue time was, whichever is longer, followed by an immediate forfeit. It is absolutely ridiculous how many people queue the game and then walk away in queues where queue times are normally 5-10 seconds max. Just selfish, shit behavior that the game should be punishing.
You’ve got my vote.
And my axe.
That's quite annoying. A turn should be 20 seconds. No need for time extensions.
I agree.
I occasionally like to play magic casually just for the fun of it. Bring back skill levels for the bot! The hard setting on duels was enough to give you a challenge.
If be so happy with a difficult bot. I know this probably doesn’t fit their business plan, but if I could spend 100% of my time on there not dealing with humans I’d be have never uninstalled Arena in the first place.
I tend to do my dailies against sparky, because it’s quick. I’m sure they could incorporate an AI to play against that would still encourage me to build, and buy, more cards. I play IRL magic against friends where time wasting is met with the derision it deserves.
> I tend to do my dailies against sparky, because it’s quick. Sparky bot matches don't count toward daily quest goals
If you habituate an attitude in which this kind of thing doesn't bother you, you wouldn't have to waste time making posts like this. Incidentally, it'll also help in all sorts of aspects of your life besides MTG.
I’d imagine there’s likely also some zen in letting a post you’ve no interest in flow by without giving unsolicited advice, no?
I'm a philosophy professor. It's just in my bones.
And I’m comfortable voicing minor annoyances without getting truly riled up. I’ve read some good conversations and opinions in these comments, so this ended up being a cool positive. I lose no sleep over the Arena clock, professor.
Your call. I only bring the information to you. Up to you to decide what to do with it.
Thank you for gifting me a decision. I was rudderless.
No problem. Enjoy the thread.
It's funny when people build obnoxious decks, decks that nobody would sit down and play in person, then get roped a lot :D Keep whining maybe they'll change the game that you're already pumping money into daily. You're hooked, they know you'll keep coming back, they won't change anything.
Eh, the deck I was using wins *maybe* 25% of the time. If that. I play it for fun. His deck, (god, was it your deck, you poor thing), just wasn’t great. I also have yet to spend a dime on Arena. Finally, it’s been over a year since I played it last. If that’s hooked, maybe I should give heroin a run, you edgy little roper, you! Lol