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« on: May 08, 2018, 08:21:56 am »
It seems to me that parity in the game is more important than any given position on undos. Whenever I play tournament matches (which is not for some time but I might get back into it), I always request from my opponent that an agreement be made that we will both honour. I request no-information undos to be granted and nothing else and every time the opponent has agreed. However, if the opponent said "no, I'd rather grant no undos" then I'd be happy with that (I'd just play quite a bit more slowly). I have never yet had someone agree to granting undos on a specified scheme then deny in-game. If anyone did, I would consider that to be cheating.
Unfortunately, there's just not time to do this in casual matching-play. When I'm settling in for 6 games against someone, I don't mind having a 3min chat about undos, but that's not really feasible when people are just bouncing about and matching up. My method for that has been to assume (based on good data) that most people allow no-info undos and obvious-misclick undos (I don't think the latter are appropriate for tournmant play just because the definition is too subjective) and to know that this is also my preference, so to play as if that's the case, and blacklist anyone who plays no-undo. I don't blacklist people who play no-info with no leniency for obvious misclicks, because, as I said, that's fairly subjective, so I leave this as a grey area and just accept that I might be playing as if I'll be granted those undos and then just occasionally not be granted them and have to suck it up. I then just blacklist anyone who plays total no-undo. It's not because I think it's cheating or even that it's unsportsmanlike - it's just not how I like to play, so I let them have their dominion online and I'll have mine.
The one thing that I absolutely cannot stand is if a player is inconsistent. If a player requests an undo of me then I assume that means they would grant that undo if I requested it. If someone requests a no-info undo then denies that to me then I wish there were a more severe blacklist (blacklist+report or something) that I can do, because that's just plain cheating in my view. If they request an "obvious-misclick" undo then don't grant me one then maybe we just differ on what's obvious. That's too subjective to get too annoyed about.
Similarly, if people spam undo requests at me for clear "I'll try this and see what cards I draw then undo if they're not what I want" reasons, then I'll deny, then ask them to stop, then eventually blacklist. A form of dominion where you just get to explore all the options for your turn then pick the one that worked best at the end is not a form of dominion I like.
The key all through here is that, though I have a particular undo preference (grant no-info undos always, grant obvious misclicks outside tournament play to taste), what is much more important to me is that a player be consistent, and that both players be playing on the same system in any one game. Because of that, I think a few set positions (for instance, never allow, always allow no-info undos but never anything else, always allow no-info undos and ask on anything else) should be allowed for specification in match-searching, so that there is less misunderstanding and conflict.
