Idea: Add "non-cooperation FFA" game mode

Many people dislike opposite cooperation in FFA, either because they don't enjoy it or they believe it goes against the spirit of ffa. (whether it does or not is beside the point) The idea is simple: Add "non-cooperation FFA" game mode, in place of solo. Nothing is different except its name. The logic is this: in regular ffa, teaming is impossible to police and there is no interest from most players not to team. In non cooperation ffa, teaming is still impossible to police, but the theory is that the players playing it will avoid teaming. In theory, players on their own, at least three out of four of any given game, will, to their satisfaction, avoid teaming, and teaming, through everyone being antagonistic to it, would work out on its own.

It could be casual. There's a good chance it wouldn't work, but the only drawback is the one we have with solo, in that it draws away the player base. I think it would be worth the experiment.

Thanks for reading, Caleb

smart idea

hmm

ok idea but if people don't like opposite cooperation it is what it is, they should just suck it up and deal with it

Brilliant idea. We should name it SOLO

The teaming aspect of the game is purely based upon a winning strategy though, its only those who don't understand the longterm benefits of the strategy that disagree with. Solo games are the same just not as full on. At any point in any game a player will assist another as its simply beneficial to reaching the win. Its just a built in factor of the variant which was unexpected.

Perhaps, but people team in solo; some teaming players play solo, and many non-teaming players play ffa; it isn't clear

I know; but teaming with your opp wont work if your opp is opposed to teaming, which is what I think would happen.

That's exactly the opposite. But being 2168 currently you don't understand the basics yet (for instance, https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/basic-ffa-aspects). Once around 2400/2500 you will understand.

HSCCCalebBrown, WHY NOT! As variant, etc. And as it's supposed to be casual, it's Ok.

The problem is that you will have 1001 marginal situations where there will be a lot of disputes, confusion, frustration, even hate. Like "R and Y teamed up, these bastards didn't respect the rules, look!", "No we didn't, I simply profited from his check, it's normal", etc.

If there is no incentive like giving more points for pieces taken from the opp', it definitely won't work. Because the teaming in the 1st stage is implied by the very disposition of the board. And if you don't counterbalance with some incentive, there will still be teaming. (You will notice that in high level Solo there is exactly the same teaming in the 1st stage whereas there is no 2nd place. I believe it's a good indication that your idea "as is", with no points adjustments, will not work).

(For those who would like to reduce the teaming drastically in FFA, I believe that some other approaches could work better than the simple declaration of the new mode as the author of this thread proposed. For instance I proposed some ways to address the issue: https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/ideas-to-prevent-teaming-in-ffa)

There are plenty of teamers who have skill. But there are many players who don't like it; if everyone hates teaming in a game mode, will anyone team? No!

Jcross just has some unique opinions. All is fine!

Good points; One stumbling block is everyone's different definitions of teaming. I think the fact that in theory everyone who is playing this is against teaming would counteract it, but since its an experiment if added, I think opp pieces counting more could be tried. It comes down to small risk; big reward, in my eyes. I will look at the counteracting teaming thread; I think this idea, perhaps combined, is the only feasible one that could work.

I like the idea, but doesn't this make the game much harder to play?

For starters, trading pieces is just terrible, because the other players have more attacking chances as they didn't trade their pieces off. Then comes the question: how in the world are you supposed to checkmate a player effectively? It is very rare that you see a player get checkmated by just one player; the majority of checkmates happen with the cooperation of two players.

These are just my views on this concept, but I'm nowhere near as good or experienced with FFA as you guys are. I don't know if being good at teams means anything here, either, considering this is a forum based on NOT teaming, but I think I've made a few decent points to take into consideration. Still a good idea, but you just need to work out the kinks

I agree: noobs well play this and good ones will be able to play correctly  because they will get only good opposites

The whole concept of 4pc is about teaming ( more or less ), 2 against 1. When you sow ( any mode - solo or ffa ) that players attack each other one on one in 4 players stage or 3 pl. stage without interference of others players? If someone is under check or attack, in 100 % cases other players will use that - is that teaming? yes! So...

p.s. keep your hands away from the solo! With ffa you do what you want ( that mode is joke already )!!!

But... Um, what if people still team. Like you said this is still impossible to police...

even in solo, ppl have to cooperate in order to win. This wont be changed, and you really cant monitor those changes

Imagine say Red was going to mate Blue, basically had Mate in 1, and then Yellow comes in and steals the mate, Green then mates Yellow and claims win. 

You can decide for yourself what happens in chat next 

Red: idiot yellow playing for 3rd get out of here

Blue: 2v1

Yellow: gg

Green: lol gg