Cassandra: I did say I would leave this thread, knowing the way it will go, but you are not RJ so I'll allow myself a fond hope that you may listen.
Regarding a cycle, there is nothing difficult to remember, especially in the case of enforced ones. Probably the one or the other player will need more than only one pass to realise, but even the very most unexperienced player will -- sooner or later.
The problem here is that you are assuming everyone can, and wants to, think in terms of cycles. This is most definitely not the case, and I believe that it is a vast majority of us who do not want to think in such terms.
Take the sentence: "It is common." Each word may be likened to a go move. It is very easy to follow the sequence, and even to remember the sentence, and to understand it. We can change it to "It is not uncommon." This may be likened to a ko (a double negative). We'd find this quite easy to understand, but many people will be on their guard - is there a subtle difference intended? After all "not bad" often does not mean "good" - it usually means "very, very good". This may be likened to a bent four in the corner kind of ko. Still a simple one, but with strings attached.
Then we can go on to a double ko: "It is not unlikely that it is not uncommon." Relying, if I may, on my memory, I assert that it has been shown many times by researchers that even that low level of complexity of double negatives in language confuses most people, and has absolutely nothing to do with how intelligent they are. It's just the way our brains work. In fact, we are all so intelligent that we know exactly what is meant when a double negative is used for a single negative: "I ain't dun nuthin'".
If I go on to a triple ko and say "It is impossible that it is not unlikely that it is not uncommon", I can confidently say - despite having invented that sentence, finding it easy to remember and understanding each individual word (i.e. move) perfectly - that I have absolutely no idea what it means. More importantly, in real life I would never be willing, unless paid, to try and work out what it might mean - I say "might" because even if I think I can work out the meaning, I'd still be suspicious that the composer of the sentence was up to some shenanigans (which, here, I am; QED).
We see something similar in computer programming with recursion. Some people take to it like a duck to water. Most people baulk at it. Indeed, there are even very good programmers who avoid it. It just doesn't feel natural to them, and since understanding your own code is crucial, they take what (for them) is the best way out.
In other words, rules mavens have to get it into their heads that very many people (probably most) do not think they way they do. They do not and never will see a ko as a cycle. A "cycle of 2" is gibberish to them (is it a bicycle, a tandem). In fact, I don't think it is even good English. I remember asking on rec.games.go what a "cycle hit" might be, because it appeared in a go book, translated I think by Bob Terry. We had enough context to know it was a baseball term. Yet not a single American there, as I recall, was able to tell us what it was. The tone was: what on earth have cycles got to do with baseball? I found out later that the usual phrase is "hit for the cycle" and it refers to getting four hits that take you respectively to 1st base, 2nd base, 3rd base and home. But in any order. So where does the cycle come in? Then of course the rules mavens chime in as well. Does getting first base on a non-intentional walk count as a base hit? The batter has skilfully worked his way there by not swinging and missing, after all. Does getting first base through hit by pitch count? It's a hit, after all. Etc, etc. All this ignorance, inconsistency, intransigence is not uncommon for humans - and it's fun. We should expect fun in go, too.
As the title of this thread should remind us, the goal is good game design. It's seems a no-brainer to me that the design should be tailored to the way a very large proportion of the potential players will think (
will, not can) if you want to have any measure of success. A cycle of 2 is as far as you should go but you must never call it that. You must present it as a rule in the form we are all used to from toddlerhood: you must wait a move before recapturing in a ko. Just as we say, you must brush your teeth when you get up and before you go to bed. We NEVER say: You must brush your teeth on a 12-hour cycle. You must wait for the traffic light to turn to green. Never, you must wait for the cycle of red-amber-green to be completed.
Every Go player who has a bit experience, is able to correctly remember Jôseki, so no Go player at all will have any difficulties in remembering a repeated sequence of 6 moves that just appeared before seconds!
Oh yeah?
Last year (2020-09-08) Mi Yuting took the wrong ko in the 9th Ing Cup versus Ichiriki Ryo. But he's only a Chinese 9-dan.
Shida Tatsuya did the same in a triple ko versus Yu Zhengqi in the Judan (2016-01-07). But he's only a Japanese 8-dan.
Zhao Chenyu and Hong Ki-p'yo (2014-04-18, LG Cup) couldn't remember if a ko threat had been played before a disputed ko capture. As it was the prelims, there was no game record (though one was apparently reconstructed, possibly one-sided). But they are only Chinese and Korean professionals.
Why, some of these professionals are so weak they can't even remember (with plenty of time on the clock) that they haven't made a ko threat before re-capturing in a ko. Some are so dim that they can't even remember whether the opponent has made a move and so they end up making the brilliant two moves in a row tesuji which our brilliant amateurs struggle to learn.
Some can't even remember to press their clock. Some can't even remember what the komi is.
Goodness me, Cho Hun-hyeon couldn't even remember the most basic rules of go and played a suicide move (2003-10-02). But, of course, he was only the world's best player.
So again, the rules mavens do have to remember that not all potential go players are brilliant amateur mathematicians - BAMs) with young brains unencumbered by real go knowledge, unlike these real 9-dans, and with time on their hands.
I'd like to say more, but I can't remember what we are really talking about.
just captured a stone. Then white passes (forced) and black passes. If this is played under area scoring rules and black claims his stones are alive, white would resume the game. If it's then black's turn, he passes and it's white's turn.