The trade timer being abusable is a huge issue.

[sorryimlikethis]

When you offer someone a trade it uses up their clock and not your own.

Today my biggest fear was realised when I, and two other players, got held hostage in a game by a single opponent spamming trade offers with the intention of time wasting. I am not exaggerating when I say we all had to decline the same trade offer over 100 times, seconds apart. A constant barrage of "it's your turn" notifications that are still ringing in my ears.

There is no counter to this. Abandoning a game must be unanimous (fair enough). No one can ever be timed out, as you have to be unresponsive for 20 seconds after your timer runs out. The only saving grace in our case was the abuser got bored after (literally) 30 minutes and left the game.

There's not even a category to report the player properly. It's not a bug, it's a design flaw. Can't report for ruining the game, it only recommends a red thumb. Can't report for "other" because it's not against TOS. Banning the guy is irrelevant anyway, it's a new account with no intention of sticking around.

The fact this "feature" was rushed through Beta testing is ridiculous and needs changing immediately before more players have to suffer.

[Tisaac]

When you offer someone a trade it uses up their clock and not your own.

Today my biggest fear was realised when I, and two other players, got held hostage in a game by a single opponent spamming trade offers with the intention of time wasting. I am not exaggerating when I say we all had to decline the same trade offer over 100 times, seconds apart. A constant barrage of "it's your turn" notifications that are still ringing in my ears.

There is no counter to this. Abandoning a game must be unanimous (fair enough). No one can ever be timed out, as you have to be unresponsive for 20 seconds after your timer runs out. The only saving grace in our case was the abuser got bored after (literally) 30 minutes and left the game.

There's not even a category to report the player properly. It's not a bug, it's a design flaw. Can't report for ruining the game, it only recommends a red thumb. Can't report for "other" because it's not against TOS. Banning the guy is irrelevant anyway, it's a new account with no intention of sticking around.

The fact this "feature" was rushed through Beta testing is ridiculous and needs changing immediately before more players have to suffer.

Put a filter to only accept player with high enough elo, it should probably keep these profiles out

[lordalx]

If you face up some similar situations, you can also configure the notification settings to disable trade offer until next turn for instance

[laggercat]

I watched some of this game - the player just did weird stuff right from the start, offering crazy trades definitely not in his favour.

[jirrit]

Yea this is not good and should be solved.

I also had a problem with someone making ridiculous offers from first turn. What can you do about that besides all agree-ing to leave the game? Because if someone starts accepting these offers (like 7 things for 1) in the beginning of the game this ruins it all.

[Cos-]

This seems like a very rare problem, and changing how the timer works to avoid this would cause worse problems for the game.

Instead, have a simpler solution to this problem: If someone has had ten trades in a row rejected on the same turn, they can't offer any more trades that turn. It would cut off how much someone can abuse this feature in the way that bizarre player did, but it would not affect the vast majority of games at all. It's the sort of change that hardly anyone would ever even see, but would prevent the problem you experienced.

[Goober58]

I experienced this abuse for the first time yesterday. The player who did it was rated much higher than the other player and myself. He was also winning for most of the game. Once I pulled ahead and it appeared that he might lose, he offered a ridiculous trade, which we both refused. Then he continued to offer the same trade over and over. It took me a moment to realize what he was attempting. I couldn't think of a way out, so I let him run my clock down and kick me out. He got his victory. I got the loss and a penalty.

BGA offers no way to report such cheating that I can find.

[el cosimo]

I experienced this abuse for the first time yesterday. The player who did it was rated much higher than the other player and myself. He was also winning for most of the game. Once I pulled ahead and it appeared that he might lose, he offered a ridiculous trade, which we both refused. Then he continued to offer the same trade over and over. It took me a moment to realize what he was attempting. I couldn't think of a way out, so I let him run my clock down and kick me out. He got his victory. I got the loss and a penalty.

BGA offers no way to report such cheating that I can find.

Why not set settings on don’t warn me for trades. Then he can keep trying but don’t do anything to your time then

[Goober58]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try it--if I ever play Catan on BGA again.

[AnarchistLynel]

I experienced this abuse for the first time yesterday. The player who did it was rated much higher than the other player and myself. He was also winning for most of the game. Once I pulled ahead and it appeared that he might lose, he offered a ridiculous trade, which we both refused. Then he continued to offer the same trade over and over. It took me a moment to realize what he was attempting. I couldn't think of a way out, so I let him run my clock down and kick me out. He got his victory. I got the loss and a penalty.

BGA offers no way to report such cheating that I can find.

I haven't played Catan on BGA yet, but I have a question.

When you deny the trade... wouldn't it kick back to him? And then his timer runs down?

And for you to get kicked... don't you have to be away for 20 consecutive seconds?

I'm having a hard time understanding what the scam is.