"@Roi Joleil: If I understood your text correctly then you probably have missed that you can not see the board before pressing "Begin". "
No, i know that you cant see the board befor clicking Begin.

"Thus always letting the timer run out during the picking stage is not a dominant strategy."
It is.
If you immediatly click Begin (befor opp) you obviously have to wait until your opp commits.
If your are the 2nd to click Begin, you still dont wanna commit early as to not give away if you already clicked Begin or not. And as such you are always threatening at the very least that you still compete to get 2nd order.

"If you immediately press Begin and you decide that you want first order, you need to lock your picks in ASAP"
Obviously. Tho nobody is going to go for first order immediatly after game starts as that would inevitably give intel to the opponent that you are going for 1st order. Ergo both players will wait until the very end regardles if they already pressed Begin or not.

"However if you decide to wait with pressing the Begin button until the very end, you can not force a second order any longer. "
Yes, but how is the opponent supposed to know if you pressed it or not? They dont.

To re-explain.

The initial and main point is to get 2nd Order secured.
Thats why you stall out the Lobby and Picking stage (There is no arguing in this)
And like others already pointed out getting 2 out of the first 3 orders is usually stronger than getting 1st order. (Atleast on MME)

The rest are mind-game options both players have.
If you are the last to join the lobby (ergo you could click Begin 1st) you have the option to choose not to and go for 1st Orders instead (so not clicking 'Begin' at the beginning, but end.)
You dont know at this point how the board looks, yes, but the point was on how stupid it is in the first place that a setting supposed to increase skill just increases luck (if you are even able to join Lobby as late as possible due to Timezones) and the absurdety of mindgames.

Edited 5/6/2023 18:54:26

Unfortunately this is made even worse by the fact that you can take vacations to stall out your timer, to get 2nd in pick cycle.
I don't wanna take this to an absurd level, but here's a thought: There's a board where getting this second cycle is so important to me that I'm willing to sacrifice all my vacations for it. My opponent thinks the same but does not have a Membership. I have more vacations at hand - pay to win

What do you think about the idea of modifying how NLC works?

Add a button to picking phase "Commit for Surrender Picks". If you press it, then you show that you want to pick for second.
The actual picks then are determined the following way:
- If only 1 player pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> He gets last pick
- If both players pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> The second pick goes to a player, which pressed the button earlier.

That way:
- It will both incentivize both players to pick quickly.
- It will make the information about knowing "how much time your opp took to make picks" less valuable, as you will not be able to know whether he picked for first or last
- Technically this may be done with little code modification, just by changing what actual pick time is recorded depending on what button is pressed. The technology is already there (When you use Autopilot to pick NLC, then you get 30 secs automatically added to the recorded pick time)

Edited 5/6/2023 19:53:07

I guess that solves the stalling issue, but is of course a bad user experience for new players. Try to make them even understand what that checkbox means and why it holds any importance.

@5s, That doesn't solve the problem of "whoever looks at the map first" that can still smash that special new button first

I think Rento stated it best here:

For NLC to work, getting the first pick should always, ALWAYS give an advantage.

Rakleader also made a salient point:

NLC can incite some players to use the timer to their advantage and stall instead of playing as fast as possible.

The point of NLC is to give an advantage to 1st picker, not for 2nd picker. But instead it creates a new meta where stalling is an advantageous tactic. Something that the update specifically targets to fix:

Join ladders when you’re ready to play, not to stall.

@5s, That doesn't solve the problem of "whoever looks at the map first" that can still smash that special new button first

Isn't this the intended point of NLC: i.e. make the game fully determined by player actions only? If yes, then that suggestion eliminates the "stalling" issue, because then you are always incentivized to make your picks faster.

Add a button to picking phase "Commit for Surrender Picks". If you press it, then you show that you want to pick for second.
The actual picks then are determined the following way:
- If only 1 player pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> He gets last pick
- If both players pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> The second pick goes to a player, which pressed the button earlier.


I mean...

"- If only 1 player pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> He gets last pick"
This doesnt work as in order for me to know if i want 1st pick or two of the first 3 picks i HAVE to know the board.
Else whats the point.

"- If both players pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> The second pick goes to a player, which pressed the button earlier."
That is literally how NLC works right now.

"- It will both incentivize both players to pick quickly."
No, not at all.
If i joined the game later (aka i pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" earlier) i KNOW that im guaranteed 2nd pick.
So i can just take all the time in the world.
However my opponent who didnt press it does not have that information. So he will be forced to pick quickly. Only him.
And thats even worse now because not only is one guy guaranteed to get 2nd pick which is more often than not better, now he can also take all the time in the world to do them while the other has to rush it making the quality of picks significantly worse.

"- It will make the information about knowing "how much time your opp took to make picks" less valuable, as you will not be able to know whether he picked for first or last"
Well if the order is decided with the new Button (who presses it earlier) and speed only matters if you wanna go for 1st pick then there is no reason to delay pickstage, yea.

"- Technically this may be done with little code modification, just by changing what actual pick time is recorded depending on what button is pressed. The technology is already there (When you use Autopilot to pick NLC, then you get 30 secs automatically added to the recorded pick time)"
If you commit with Autopilot, your picks are gonna be so bad you will just lose on default (Im assuming high level picks /gameplay here ofc.)


Overall still dislike this proposal.
I think NLC is just flawed as a concept to begin with.
I doubt there is a sollution that doesnt add another problem or isnt insanely complicated.
Therefor i propose my sollution!!!

*-Use Cyclic-*

@Roi Joleil, maybe I failed to explain the idea, but I think it was not understood in the way I intended.

"- If both players pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> The second pick goes to a player, which pressed the button earlier."
That is literally how NLC works right now.

No, this is not how it works now.
- Now: if you pick earlier, you get the first pick
- With the proposal: if you pick earlier, you get the pick, which you wanted, which can be either first or second.

Edited 5/6/2023 20:28:11

What joi misunderstood is that this button wouldn't replace the "Begin" button, it's just kind of a second commit button .. you either commit "normally" or with this new option to get 2nd in cycle.
but eh, i guess it's actually a nice idea to make NLC better, but then again, Elon Musk once said (don't quote me on that), that biggest weakness of an engineer is that too often they try to optimize things that shouldn't exist in the first place. Well, NLC kinda falls into that category...

"- If both players pressed "Commit for Surrender Picks" -> The second pick goes to a player, which pressed the button earlier."
"- With the proposal: if you pick earlier, you get the pick, which you wanted, which can be either either first or second. "

You said "which pressed the button earlier." and not " if you pick earlier" initially.
So assuming what you just said is the case.

The way it would have to go is.
1- You click Begin (Timer starts after clicking Begin)
2- You make Picks (Timer Stops after commiting)
3- You choose if you want 1st or 2nd order

Like again it makes no sense to choose 1st or 2nd pick befor knowing what the board even is....

THAT BEING SAID

I would still absolutly hate this feature.
If i want to play RT, id play RT.
Whats the point of an MD Ladder if picks is entirely decided by RT.
It does fix the problems of stalling both in Lobby and in Pickstage tho, yes.
[Tho Cyclic also fixes that.. and increases skill... and works with MD....]

Edited 5/6/2023 20:36:28

The way it would have to go is.
1- You click Begin (Timer starts after clicking Begin)
2- You make Picks (Timer Stops after commiting)
3- You choose if you want 1st or 2nd order

I think it's a nice idea. Definitely a way to fix NLC.

The alternative is to get rid of it altogether.

Warzone already has tons of luck in it created from fog & not knowing your opponent's location. NLC with surrender picks worsens the experience compared to cycle. What is the point of using it, then?

---

Though the update for NLC would be useful for Small Earth templates in Clan Wars.

Edited 5/6/2023 20:47:26

Agree, adding a non-stall mechanic would be good for Bomber

But I'd still just rather just see a system that decides 1st picks/moves randomly with no hoopla and shows turn order in the game. The whole idea of "picking quickly" goes against the concept of being strategic, or as Fizz put it in the blog notes "the highest level of play".

It changes the strat from making the best picks possible to get the biggest advantage out of the picking process in the lowest amount of time to retain what privilege committing first gets you. Maybe it's first picks, maybe it's the option to choose 1st or 2nd picks, whatever, but do we really want games considered "the highest level of play" to start on T1 with an advantage for whoever commits quicker?

That said, I'm probably not going to be impacted much by this waaaay waaaay down on the Bronze ladder where we're just throwing paint at the wall anyhow . . .

Add me to the list of people who does not want NLC on the ladder.

According to most recent blog post https://www.warzone.com/blog/index.php/2023/05/ladder-refresh-launch-date-updates/ turn order will remain at cycle inst of changing to NLC. Boot time remains an issue

1+2d 1v1 Ladder
1+4d 2v2 / 3v3 Ladder

Pain

I am in a 1d+banked time game right now (no banking time added later). Let me tell you, it is a disaster, the banking time instantly went away altogether because I needed to change orders late on in order to coordinate with my teammate (which left me like half an hour), so now I need to take my turn every day.

I think Fizzer adding more banked time rather than more guaranteed time just shows he completely doesn't get the issue at hand.

Edited 5/9/2023 18:37:15