The problem that never dies

Greetings to lichess.
I am an untitled ultrachess addict. I have 99%+ positive and warm feedback regarding lichess, but that will be for another topic.

I am asking if you would please consider doing something to decrease endless frustration when playing hyper and ultrabullet.

I am not a big potato, so I suppose; why should you listen to me? With some 10 000 ultra games in less than two months, I feel I know a little bit what I am talking about (...) so without further due I will get right to it:

the problem: When playing a lot of players with third world connections, or for the fact that they purposely are using VPN, or for the fact of the distance, certain players on lichess are close to hopeless to play against because of their ping. This kind of ruin the fun and ruins the tournaments. Anyone who has played more than 100 ultra games should have some experience with this.

Would it not be possible for the amazing programmers of lichess to put a restriction or to find a solution for this, let us say that you need to have > 100 ms ping to join tournaments? (That may motivate people to straighten out their connection, I guess). Like you have Tournaments only for those rated below 1500. In principle, shouldnt this work also for ping? This is just a suggestion, so please dont express hate. I just want to make lichess better, if indeed this is something that would ease the frustration many players have when playing.

I would also like to thank lichess for adding the latest function where the server cancel a game if the opponent doesnt make a move. This shows that lichess is a living organism always developing itself and makes other chess platforms look dead and irrelevant :)

Thank you for your time and looking forward to hearing from the lichess team or from users that agree or even disagree on this topic

I support this.
It's always frustrating to play against those with very high ping. It seems like they are playing so slow, but their clock doesn't tick at all. So you intuitively slow down your pace only to find out in the end of a game that you are almost completely down on time, while your opponent's clock is in its freshness.
The problem is that lagging players are used to this slow rhythm. If they have 500ms ping, it doesn't matter much if their opponent has 50ms ping or 500ms ping, because the difference in pace is maximum two times. But for a player with 50ms ping, when facing a lagging player with 500ms ping, the difference is more than 5 times. It makes it very difficult to reorganize the style of playing for one who is used to play fast.
It also doesn't allow to be fast and use the usual tactics in ultrabullet, because the game becomes something more like ¼+1. Or ¼+0.5, completely annihilating the purpose of this time control.
I suggest to make an option, which will allow those who create a tournament to restrict lag compensation to 100ms. So, basically, everyone can join, but everything which won't fit into 100ms range will be cut off from their time. Of course, there will be warning that lag compensation is limited.
This will allow people with usual internet connections enjoy the natural purpose of ultra bullet time control.

Good idea, and I'd also propose that the cutoff be made 150ms, instead of 100ms.

+1
i support this

Sounds solid to me. +1

I agree with all that's being said here, but one thing I'd like to add is that pings are constantly changing. Just a moment ago my ping was around 80 and now it's up to 120. So in my opinion it should not only depend on your current ping, but also the amount of variance between pings.

I think that unless they add this, players can just bypass this by lagging only after they join the tournament. Or are you proposing that a player loses the game and gets blocked from the tournament if their ping ever goes above 100 while the game is being played? If that was added it would introduce new problems I think.

But overall I agree, it is a problem in ultrabullet that should be fixed.

From my point of view...

"Anyone who has played more than 100 ultra games should have some experience with this."

I've played 600+ games and I can't say it's bothered me too much. 

Anyway, this has been discussed before, and has been responded to by one of the lichess devs:

"lagging does not confer an advantage.

If *either* player lags, the game is different for *both* players. Both players get more time during ops turn to think and to enter a premove. I can see why you might not like this change of pace in an ultra tourney but rest assured that the lag comp is fair."

-Isaacly lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/stop-help-lagging-players-to-win-in-ultrabullet#3

@seanysean, it is similar experience for both players, but it doesn't mean it's fair. A player with 1000ms lag won't feel much difference if paired against a player with 1000ms or 20ms. The common lag will be in 1020-2000 range, so the possible difference is only two times. But a player with 20ms ping will feel a lot of difference. From 40ms to maximum 1020ms, which is 25 times difference. So the lagging player will have much much easier time changing their style of playing, while a player with a very low ping will have a huge disadvantage due to necessity to change their style of playing cardinally.

Well, this is certainly something we can tweak. I'm open to feedback.

ultrabullet lag comp was reduced last week (9 days ago), to a 400ms per turn cap. Before that, the cap in ultra was 500ms, for the last 2 months. If a player lags beyond the cap, they lose it as clock time.

lag monitoring:


And if you're really curious, the full logic is here:
github.com/ornicar/scalachess/blob/master/src/main/scala/LagTracker.scala#L42-L46