ksnake wrote:
Don't look at the number of games a player (new or old) is in. Look at the number of moves they have made in the last day, week and month. If they don't average near to a move per game, per day, then approach gaming with them with caution. Does not matter if they are a new *or* old player.
Yes. As a new player, I'm leery of new player limits. If such limits had been imposed when I started, it certainly would have reduced (but not eliminated) my enthusiasm for the site.
But what about a metric that pops up when you hover over a persons name? Something like the average moves/day as well as time since last move. New players would be flagged as new in the popup rather than have a metric displayed, since any metric based on less than a handful of games is likely to be misleading.
I can see two benefits to this. Experienced players could avoid slow players but still give newcomers a chance. You could also add a field in the game creation screen to only allow players with certain average play rates or better. Then everyone would be happy, the slow players and fast ones of whatever skill level could play with others of like bent.
You could even make newbie-only learning matches! It's terribly frustrating when you're just starting if you're matched up with an ace (and not even instructive if you're really, really green.) It can't be that much fun for the ace, either. |