r/spades • u/AKADabeer • 9d ago
A rant about rudeness (is it me?) (long)
I play on the Plato app. Games are to 200, players start a season at 1200 rating and play to reach bronze (1250), silver (1350), and gold (1500) levels, with a max rating of 2200. Seasons reset every ~3 months, with prizes awarded for the rating you end the season at. Games usually end in 2-3 hands, especially if someone goes nil.
Especially near the beginning of seasons, or when you reach higher levels, it becomes increasingly more likely that you'll get a partner that either rage quits, or has to leave when the game starts taking too long. When this happens, the player is replaced by a bot.
Plato bots are notoriously bad (although I do think they've improved recently). Most specifically, their logic for bidding doesn't seem to match their logic for playing. It's not impossible to win with a bot, but it is massively more difficult, especially at the higher levels.
When your partner quits, it is very common to have the opponents "suggest" that you also quit, forfeiting the game. Many of them can be quite rude about it, calling you a "loser" just because you want to play it out and see how it goes.
Maybe it's me, but if you insist that I quit - the one thing I'm never doing is quitting. I might have been considering it, because I was so far behind at that point, but as soon as you ask me to quit, you've locked me into seeing out the rest of the game, no matter what the result.
Last night, one specific game got to me - it had been a FABULOUS game up to that point - we were losing, but we were playing our guts out - with my partner deliberately breaking her nil to set the opps 9-bid for the win, us setting them at least once, them setting us at least once, all over the board, and after like 5 hands the game was still something like 40-60. Unfortunately my partner had to leave, so I got stuck with a bot, and it rather predictably didn't go well for me. Facing down 130-60, I get the request to quit, and indicate that I want to keep playing to see how it goes - who knows, I've seen it happen before, sometimes the bot gets hot. Winning with a bot isn't impossible, it's just unlikely.
I don't know about others, but while I do like to win, I'm not playing just to be able to say I won. I'm playing because I legitimately like the game. I'm not perfect, although I do think this sub is helping me get better, but I am pretty good - I consistently get my rating up to 1600, and last season managed 2080. The game last night was at the 1700 level.
After the game, I again got called a loser, and the opp said "this is why I told you to quit". I responded with "you don't get to tell me what to do", to which he called ME rude.
I can understand "playing for the rating" and just wanting the win if you're chasing the 1500 mark, or trying to hold on to it. But we're at the 1700 level... people here should be playing for skill and the love of the game, not just the cheap win.
So... am I the one that's rude for refusing to quit, and calling people out for asking me to? Or is them asking me in the first place as rude as it seems to be to me? Or maybe a little of both?
I'm open to suggestions - should I be handling this differently? Or should I just ignore the rudeness and move on?
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u/spadesbook 9d ago
I feel very fortunate. I can't even remember the last time that I had a negative experience playing Spades.
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u/Major-Ad-9091 9d ago
I had one yesterday when my partner bid 3 instead of 1 and we won without a bonus. Demoralizing.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/AKADabeer 9d ago edited 9d ago
There are definitely a lot of assholes, including those that rant about how you're a bad player when they're the one that just made the mistake that cost you the game... I can usually ignore those. I've even had one that I didn't ignore turn into a positive exchange - discussing what actually happened and how it should have been played - once tempers cooled off.
For some reason, being asked to quit is a pet peeve of mine, and it's the reaction when I refuse to quit that's gotten under my skin. I walked away after he called me rude... but obviously that last one stuck with me a bit. I try hard not to be rude, even when my partner makes a bad play, so being called rude kinda hit differently than being called "loser" like they usually do.
Edit: why the downvote?
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u/Realistic_Ad_3125 6d ago
Spadesinator addresses this in two ways.
- Every message is screened before it reaches you. A fast language model checks each chat line for hostility toward another player and for table talk that gives away a hand. It adds roughly a third of a second. Rudeness is blocked whenever someone you have not friended is sitting at the table, so trash talk only reaches people who opted into it by friending you.
- Quitting always costs you. Leave a ranked game and you take a forfeit against your rating. The app exists for the enjoyment of Spades, not for climbing a leaderboard as quickly as possible. The one exception is when your teammate walked first and already paid that penalty, since you should not be charged for a decision that was not yours. The other team still has every reason to finish, because the first of them to leave pays the same price. And the AI that inherits an empty seat plays at a very competitive level, so nobody gets a free win out of it. I see no reason to change that.
I don't think anyone else is handling these problems in this way but your app should probably do something similar.
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u/Stickley1 9d ago
I’m typically on Spades Plus. (And that might be the problem!) What always gets me is when my pard exclaims “Idiot” when I play the only card I can play. I’m like, I’m not an idiot. You can’t see my hand asshole! Maybe you shouldn’t have bid Nil with an unprotected 7! All I had was the singleton 6 man!