I almost added a section to my blog posting about the problem being exacerbated by certain high level players that will argue different points at different times.

But then I decided against it.

So, uh, I guess that's it.

monte: lame game of shame

nice <3

TheBetterYodel quote:
Btw if you totally disagree with me then you aren't playing enough dice to see what is going on out there Lum. No offense.

Maybe cause i have better things to do these days. Or maybe it's caused by the same as this topic ;)

I disagree with you cause of your view on why people NOT accepting vflags is lame. Might actually be people around who likes to enjoy a good game without being point hungry.

the problem that I have seen with trying to turn down an early vflagger is that everyone gets their panties in a wad and assumes you will not accept flags. Therefore, the guy who you turn down vflags to someone else and before you know it it's 4v1 and you are the 1....

I'd be interested to hear ideas on what can be done. I dislike it along with the rest of you. I cannot hand on heart say I've never vflagged before round 8 but I try not to. I've been playing a long time and this version of flagging seems to have stuck for a good long while now. I too remember the instant death flags and the turn on/turn off flags from waaaaaaay back, surely no one is suggesting a return to these. Of all of them the instant death ones were probably the easiest to police. At least then if you said 'I flag' you were taking last available place.

While I hate them and support a call to arms to punish round 2 flaggers I think in general with this game you need to roll with the changes. Punishing should extend to never acepting them before round 8 but how hard line do you want to get. I myself have been in games where the player in first keeps attacking me when I am attempting to flag 2nd thus knocking me back to 3rd. This is pretty hard line (though to be fair the player in question was 43218765 who's a little bit special). So where draw the line. You cannot enforce never take a vflag much as you can't enforce never a vflag before round n and I can see the temptation when you see it as helping you to gain a better position.

Any way like I said be pleased to hear any suggestions on policing it.

@redapples i agree it's hard to draw a line and for now i set my line to round 5 no matter if i can see i will lose the game by not accepting. This became like a religion for me :D nah just kidding. But it's something that i do no matter what cause i wouldn't be cool if i only accepted when it's best for my own benefits.

The reason i choosed round 5 is that in this round many games is already settled and maybe it would help get rid of many early vflags if the flag was avalable from round 5 instead of 8.

Most of all i'm so f*ucking tired of people flagging round 2 or 3 with 2 territories and hide until the end of the game to fight for positions. And the worse kind will even sty to whine for position cause they flagged first and all i can say is: are you proud of that ?

But i remember when we punished ninja flaggers and we should do the same with these early vflaggers!

I've only been back a short while, but these vflags suck the fun out of most games - whether you're inundated with them or feel forced submit after everyone else pussies out.

Since flags tend to come in waves after the first person, I might try: If I look strong and everyone flags me, then I accept everyone but the first person to flag. So I don't feel bad for breaking any "unwritten rules", but still undermining them.

If enough people start punishing this behaviour, maybe we can improve things. Truces were't perfect, but much better than this.

i was thinking about this in the shower this morning (yes, its true, i shower).

vflagging has always existed in kdice, but only in like 10% of games back in the old days. and it was tolerated, as long as the vflags made sense.

then tourneys came. and one of the MOST important tourney strats is vflagging. everyone quickly realized that it was critical to vflag fast and furious in order to survive to the next round. for exactly that reason: in tourneys the goal is more to survive than to win.

the problem came when people naturally brought the urgent vflag strat out of tourneys onto normal tables. what people dont realize is that normal tables are not like tourney tables in two important ways: 1) 5th is not 6th is not 7th, and 2) dominance points count for up to thousands of points each game.

i think we are all bitching about vflagging being a bad fad on the regular tables. and we are trying to scheme up ways to fix it there. but i think that is more like curing a symptom and not curing the disease. i say we need to try to eliminate vflagging in tourneys. well, not eliminate, but definitely curb it. if vflagging goes down in tourneys, you bet yer ass it will go down on regular tables.

so my proposal to get rid of vflagging is as follows (and this is only for tourneys, because changing the system like this on regular tables would be too revolutionary). and this is just a simple fix, which wont do much, but its a start...

ALLOW people to flag starting in round 1. this takes the v out of vflagging. no longer is it virtual, it is actually there for everyone to see: a flag. then people will know immediately who is flagging and how to respond.

the danger is that flagfest round 2 will happen, ofc. well, easy fix: write a line of code that says flags do not execute until round 8. they can exist before that, they just dont execute.

wait now that i think of it, flagfest round 2 could start in the current system anyways, as long as everyone can instaflag last place before round 8. hmmmm.

anyways, i dont know the answer, i just like to type long forum posts. i say the right thing to do is implement a fix in the tourneys, then the natural effect will be vflags will be less of a problem on regular tables, where they truly are bad for the game (and the game's income).

sorry for not respecting ur vflag iumentum

You got a good point there monte think i will join tourneys just to suicide into the vflaggers :)

Arg benogo you're such an asshole, i flagged to you fist you fucking n00b!
:D