Time Wasters and the Roping Mechanic

General Discussion
41

Thank you for those kind words.

Instead of replying to individual parts of your response, I’ve tried to formulate my response in a way that encapsulates most of the relevant themes.

Please consider the following scenario:
An anti-roper reports a roper to the authorities. A trial is being held. The roper sits at the defender stand. After the trial procedures, he has to be found not guilty by the jury since no laws have been broken. This means that the accuser, the anti-roper has to pay all damages and cost of the trial to the defendant.

Let’s take a look at thread starter @Benzy’s case:
“Tonight alone, I have faced approximately 10 people that spend their turn doing nothing until the last moment, where they press ‘end turn’ just before the timer runs out, so they can waste yet another full turn the next time round.”
Objection: Speculation

“But on ladder, ranked games, particularly rank gold and above, players typically know what they’re doing, and a player that ropes 3 turns in a row before turn 5 is more often than not, simply wasting time for their own amusement.”
Objection: Speculation

“No one is perfect. But, and I’m sure you would agree, there is a spate of players that intentionally waste other people’s time for their own amusement.”
Objection: Speculation

“I’ve resorted to spamming the wow emote and roping them back as a message to them that being an a**hole can work both ways, and that I’m just here to play a game, which sometimes has the desired effect.”
Objection: Prejudicial, inflammatory

“To get selfish players intentionally time wasting to make other’s concede out of impatience is not part of the deal.”
Objection: Speculation

“So if a player spends 99% of their turn just to press end turn, that should trigger some kind of response from the game to suggest their may be time wasting, and repeated instances, then, are punished, to preserve player’s enjoyment and to keep the game from being ruined by selfish players.”
Objection: Speculation

“It’s a function exploit at the expense of the opponent for no reason beyond self gratification.”
Objection: Speculation

If @Benzy actually was taking a roper to trial he himself should be the one who stands accused. He would be liable to pay the trial fees as he had no legal grounding. He would also be liable to pay damages if spam emoting were a punishable offence.

All this is not to say you can’t suggest changes to the turn system. What I’m trying to say is that any transgressions against ropers in-game, post-game and on the forum are ungrounded, and anyone who carry out such transgressions are the ones who are punishable from a legal standpoint.

In the anti-ropers defense, it seems like they are just trying to understand why anyone would rope at all. A simple reason which I believe everyone can understand is simply to enjoy the design, artwork and beauty of it all. There doesn’t need to be any reason besides this for roping to be justified. If Blizzard doesn’t want players to spend all of their turn time admiring the game, then changes can be made, but until then, treat all ropers as innocent until proven guilty. As mentioned by different posts earlier the game is meant to be fun, and arguably nothing is more fun than marvelling at this gorgeous game’s beauty without a care in the world.

42

so in you theory most of the ropers are psychology students or babies whom still wonder of the “beauty” of a 6 year old CARD game…you are absolutely a troll
ropers are a good example of Occam’s razor : they just simply want to piss off other peoples because they are frustrated (coz of lose or just because like cheaters using cheat) simple as that, you overthink this with more than a troll level

43

I think time is even a bigger issue in HS than RNG.
First of all, time should be calculated differently. Timer should never move during animations. Its a shame that this bug has since HS was released. I play a card, a long animation begins, and can’t attack, can’t play other cards, and the time expires!
Secondly, they should keep track if I act much quicker in a turn than usual, and award bonus seconds for this. So when I have a turn where I need to make a lot of decisions, I could use up these extra seconds. It would make roping pointless, and would help make it a game of thinking.

44

Great points, I know exactly how you feel. I started playing ETC Warrior and at the start, I lost moves because I was calculating damage. But at the start of the matches, I played quickly so if your system was in place, I would have banked time to plan my moves.

45

Great argument Pure, and again fabulously well articulated.

The only counter argument I would bring forward is that surely @Benzy’s legal team would have the defendants game logs as evidence.

The legal team would approach Blizzard and demand the game logs to review. If the defendant does have a history of roping, there would be proof so @Benzy may have a case. Presumably @Benzy would only go to court if they thought they could win.

I do agree though, without evidence, the case would not stand up in court.

1 Like
46

Have you ever taken a close look at the card art? People have been spending thousands of hours carefully crafting breathtaking pieces of art. Take a look at Alex Horley, one of the long time legendary artists of this game. He is a self thought traditional oil and acrylic painter who has spent most of his life dedicating himself to the art. If you are too caught up in gameplay alone, you might miss the profundity of all the artwork presented.

It doesn’t matter that the game is 6 years old as the artworks are timeless. Anyhow, a game’s age is more of an indicator of maturity and class than anything.

I can grant you that there are players out there who misuse the roping mechanic. However, there are people out there who rope for the purposes of appreciation. You shouldn’t remove something good because a portion of the ropers are black sheep, even if the latter more prevalent.

2 Likes
47

True, but a history of roping would not count as a legal offence, as there’s nothing illegal about roping in and of itself. If @Benzy’s legal team had no proof of malintent (i.e chatlog) or bot suspicion, they would have no tangible case no matter the defendant’s history of roping.

1 Like
48

if you want to wonder about card artwork go to my collection and dont waste others time

49

There are a few issues with that argument @MegaShiver:

  1. You would admire the card artwork of cards from own deck and your opponents, as well as randomly generated cards.
  2. You can’t appreciate the card animations, voicelines and effects from one’s collection.
  3. It’s from not knowing what cards will be presented that keeps everything fresh and interesting.

As for wasting other peoples time, that’s an unfounded argument. First of all, each player is given 75 seconds a turn. You can’t say someone is wasting another player’s time when they are using the time they are given. A player can use those seconds however they see fit, whether it’s thinking about future turns, appreciate the artwork or whatever else. Also, you can’t know if the opponent wants you to end your turn early or not. Personally I enjoy when the opponent is using all of their turn time. That way the game feels far more intriguing.

Let me propose a different perspective for you. At the start of every game always expect that the opponent is going to use all 75 seconds. If they use any less, it’s a pleasant suprise (if such an outcome were deseriable), if not, you’re not bothered. Now you are actually grounded in the reality of the ruleset provided and not in a spun up fiction of how the game should or shouldn’t be played out. The problem with being involved in a falsehood is that whenever the delusion is contested you will experience suffering. A spun up fiction is like a prison of your own creation (look at Raza the Chained card art). Deconstruct the prison and your suffering will cease.

1 Like
50

there should be something like automatic kicking these idiots who are not moving for 3 turns and pressing end turn at the end of the time shouldnt be able to avoid the kick at all. I always was wondering, how its possible to opening game, sitting like a retard and watching monitor for 2 min every time opponent ended his turn or maybe they just watching adult sites because never tasted a woman, who knows. Its totally retarded, especially while playing turn-based game. People are malicious these days especially those who gonna die beside computer without friends or someone they love, 4ever virgins, 4 ever skinny no lifers with glasses, so what can i say.

1 Like
51

MightyBeast because u are malicious teen hoe.

52

you are still speaking about such a bullsh.t things about card work, animation etc. which is important for like 1 in a million

le me propose a different perspective for u: like basketball game, “An attacking team has 24 seconds from gaining possession of the ball to shoot at the basket, else they lose the possession of the ball” This doesn’t mean they will play every round till 24 sec, if they can score faster, shot ball etc. they will make it (like mana points in HS). There is almost no team in the world who does this behaviour (waiting for 24 sec every turn), because it’s not ethical. As in HS they are doing it without have a single mana (or with full mana also), because they absolutely ignore the fairplay.
The ropers in this game are these kinda retards, I bet this is near 99%. Face it.

53

Thank you for your reply.

The 24 second rule was implemented in basketball for the following reason:
The NBA’s 24-second shot clock was invented in 1954 by Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone, who wanted to force teams to pick up the pace of games. Why 24 seconds? "I looked at the box scores from the games I enjoyed, games where they didn’t screw around and stall,” Biasone explained. “I noticed each team took about 60 shots. That meant 120 shots per game. So I took 48 minutes (2,880 seconds) and divided that by 120 shots. The result was 24 seconds per shot.”

This means if each team spent 24 seconds for every turn it would still be considered a good, paced game according to the rule’s inventor Danny Biasone. As for you second point, tournament players have little concern of the ethicality of the matter. Before the 24-second rule was invented in 1954, a lot of players stalled. Why? Because they could. Professional players utilize whatever advantage they can get within it’s allowed ruleset, that’s why you see a lot of professional Hearthstone players (like Trump) rope almost every turn. If it wasn’t for that using all 24 seconds every turn is unoptimal (because they would mistime the shot clock and receive a shot clock violation a considerable number of times) you can bet they would do it.

Just like the 24-second rule would make for a good, paced game according to Danny Biasone, Hearthstone’s 75-second rule makes for a a good, paced game according to Blizzard. Your expectations are just warped because most people are impatient, so you get used to turns only lasting a fraction of the turn time. Then, when you finally face a player who isn’t corrupted by impatience, you demonize him/her. If you want quick gameplay, go play CoD or Overwatch. If you want to play a strategy game, learn to be patient.

1 Like
54

did i rope u cuz?? big up myself

55

and where was this impatience 1 year ago? heh? nowhere because the players wasn’t frustrated like now, if you would do “why you rope?” poll, i bet that poll result will be 90% or more “because others people do it or I want to piss of other classes/people”.
blizzard 75 second is like the rule before 24 in basketball, if ppl will do this rope more and more frequently, i hope blizzard will implement something against it (and make a rule like the 24 second for basketbal)

56

You have apparantly never played Priest.

Roping as Priest is also pretty weird, because games usually already take a long time. That player must have some serious issues.

57

HS was advertised as ‘quick duels,5 min at a time’ or something like that. Here we have people roping on turn1. Okay there might be some sick individuals that take pleasure in wasting others’ times,but I think it’s mostly connectivity issues as many people use mobile devices to play. Still, I think rope timer could be a few seconds shorter.

58

Its not about people playing normally or thinking. whats not to get.
there are a lot of “players” who spend every turn no matter what cards they have who press their hero power, wait for the timer to tick down to 0.02 seconds and press end turn.
Its not them thinking, its blatently not them playing.
They do it every turn, every time, until the game ends because youve put enough damage out to kill them.
now sure, thats great, an easy win, but youve wasted so much time playing a game thats not fun because your opponent never does anything.
All you can do is either leave (rank down) or walk away each turn until the timer runs out so you can come back and play a minion.
Congratulations if youve never had to play against one, but as someone whos just played against 3, I’d like 20 minutes of my life back.

1 Like
59

Too many times the board is empty and they just rope to rope, nothing else,
Tell me how a deck that mainly plays high cost cards like big priest has to “think” about what card they can’t play because they have no mana for it. you can see which players are actually thinking because they hover over different cards and minions and actually see them trying to do stuff, while the ropers literally go afk and as the rope starts burning they return to do the stuff.
I myself never rope I always play as fast as I can because knowing a few of my games actually went to 35 minutes, roping would increase that to hour long games. Nobody has time for that…I mostly play while my job has 5-10-15 minute dead times. roping and making 10 minute games to half hour ones is just plain bad attitude
If the opponent really does not change it’s attitude I just concede and move on. one loss is not the end of the world, but when you’re climbing and that one game determines if you move to / past Diamond or stay then it’s very frustrating.
Everyone says you just lose time, but you guys clearly don’t value time then, and as I remembered from a movie: no amount of money ever bought a second of time.
stop defending the ropers with “What if” reasons and BS. Time is more valuable for some people. for me who is grinding the 1000 wins for many classes, 2 games / hour is just makes it too time consuming and it takes my motivation away. I rather have 4-5 games/hour than 2, even if the EXP is the same.
If someone came to you while working or on your day off and talk to you and they took their time “roping” you in real life you all would be triggered by it, but if it’s in a game against a stranger, you magically not care anymore?

My suggestion would be that every time the timer hits the rope, for next turn you have less time for your turn. and it increases as you rope more. eventually leading to you not having time at all to do stuff if you take your sweet time. I think it would be a fitting punishment.

60

If I’m about to lose a game I do tend to rope. I’m a ROPER ama. srs.