Conceding Matches?!

Okay, explain the meaningful difference between the two scenarios:

1. I successfully make an attack, knock out my opponent's Pokémon and earn my third point. They lose. I win.
2. My opponent concedes before I can knock out their Pokémon and earn my third point. They lose. I win.

What does that third point really mean to you? Why is it so important? I am not cheated out of my rightful win in either scenario.

Like I said, stop seeking grievance in the smallest of interactions from your opponent. Even if they did seek to slight you, so what? Why let them sour your victory?

And I think any solution you could come up with would inevitably make the game worse; dragging out matches needlessly because you have restricted or discouraged a player's ability to concede.

I want my opponent to be able to concede at any time for any reason. Even if it is a millisecond before I win. I still won. Nothing changed about the result.

As for your point regarding concessions in professional televised sport, other than examples for non-team based sports like golf, I was astonished that I could not find any examples with a cursory search.

'Never' is a bold claim, one that is almost always wrong, and I am certain there must be some obscure instance of some football team conceding somewhere in history.

But fair enough.

I guess I should concede the point... No wait, I should keep arguing a losing point because I would lose integrity if I conceded. 😏

(Just kidding.)

But seriously...

I do not think it is a fair comparison to turn based or strategy games. Real time sports events can be affected by all kinds of freak events and can turn around in seconds, depending on the score and the type of game.

It is a drastically different proposition to concede with little time remaining and force all of the players to physically leave a sports field as opposed to you sitting on you smart phone tapping the concede button.

For live sports, it is probably easier to just play out the last few minutes of a losing game than co-ordinating with your team and managers to declare a concession. And again, things can change rapidly in live sports. Might as well play it out and see, if nothing else due to the logistics of surrendering taking too long.

Not to mention that in televised professional sport spectators pay to watch a game. Entire teams train endlessly for games. It is not one person deciding to concede a match and losing for themselves. They would be seen as wasting the training of their teammates and coaches, and the time and money of their supporters.

Such pressures do not exist in 1v1 matches on a smartphone app.

Turn based games and strategy games are much more predictable. At a certain point, defeat can be an inevitability. Card game matches and e-sports matches for video games regularly end in concessions for this reason. That I do know for a fact.

Furthermore, even in video games or tabletop games, long tournaments still exact a physical toll on the players. Games go long, people get hungry and tired. It is often better to concede in a losing (or inevitably losing) scenario and save your stamina for later games.

I hear you. 15 seconds does not seems like a lot of time and would give them a satisfying victory.

For me, I feel that I am saving both people 15 seconds, which adds up over lots of games, and am still giving a satisfying victory. Conceding as soon as you play your Sabrina with 2 points means you won, whether it's now or after all the animations pan out.

Also, I'm down for positive growth. Unfortunately, I disagree with you that waiting those 15 seconds would make me a braver / more respectful person. Try not to judge people based on how their actions make you feel.

I'm surprised by what a contentious topic this is but I think there might be a compromise to be had here. Perhaps during an online match, when one player concedes, the other player is allowed to continue playing the match to conclusion with the auto-battle mechanism taking over for the missing player. This way, players who want to leave a match in progress are welcome to do so without disrupting the other player's ability to play out a full game. This could also be used if one player loses their connection, to avoid players doing so purposefully as a griefing tactic. I think this would go a long way towards helping players who are frustrated that they can rarely win a full match without changing the experience at all for players who want to be able to exit a match at a moment's notice.

Unlikely to happen because most people are conceding because they are sore losers and would have lost the match. But there is an easy solution: The player who conceded still records a loss - and if the player remains in the match and loses the auto battle will also record a loss. It's not hard.

I have found a way to keep matches going to the end. I deliberately hold off evolving my pokemon to the final form (Charizard for example) so the defending player thinks there's still a chance when I bring out my basic or stage 1 Pokemon. I then as fast as possible throw the final evolution down and hit them with an attack before they concede. I realise for those who are short on time that those extra 120 seconds of their time is a big deal, but it's very satisfying to be able to complete the match !