Player taking advantage of undo move to stall the game.

[0621]

I am playing Agricola and there was a player who claims he needed to leave, but the table wasn't agreeable to change it to turn based or let it be abandoned. The player decided to spitefully play and undo moves. This went on for about 5-10 minutes after the allocated time he has to think. The system prevented us from kicking the player as the system still detected that he has made an action, and therefore we couldn't expel him despite him running out of time.

In the end, I assume that when he realized he couldn't convince the table to quit despite his antics, he decided to quit. (I assumed this is what happened as I was afk, but I know I returned to seeing a "player has quit" message). However, it seems that the system does not have a way to prevent players from abusing the system. May I know if there are any plans to remedy this?

[nccc]

plz report here. https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1430

[0621]

Doesn't feel like a bug though. In fact, I would say it is a reasonable and to some extent - welcome - implementation until today where I noticed someone deciding to exploit the system.

[Tisaac]

The only thing i could think of would be to somehow limit to X undos for a single turn, otherwise it is indeed working as intended and can't prevent bad players from abusing it.

[Sheba-leila]

Please for All games.

[Silene]

Or disable undo when already overtime might be possible?

[RicardoRix]

There is no rational reason for such behaviour.
Finding loop-holes and exploiting them should result in a punishment / moderation / ban.
If it did, then users would be less likely to try and exploit them.

Having to fix stuff to stop these things is a real waste of time.

Did the user get punished at all?

[paramesis]

I don't think this is an issue that developers of individual games should be expected to fix. The additional "last-chance" timer before skipping an out of time player was somewhat recently added to the framework (within the last year, I believe), and it has now been demonstrated to be exploitable as a way to ruin the experience of other players. In a real-time as described, any repeatable or cyclical action that makes a database call, not just database undo, could be used to trap other players in a game which they would be unable to leave without incurring a penalty.

I didn't see a BGA bug or suggestion report that specifically addressed this, so I created one here:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=70402

[0621]

There is no rational reason for such behaviour.

I would say there is a rational reason, but it is malicious.

Finding loop-holes and exploiting them should result in a punishment / moderation / ban.
If it did, then users would be less likely to try and exploit them.

Having to fix stuff to stop these things is a real waste of time.

I disagree that fixing stuff is a waste of time, because this is something that causes a negative gameplay experience. And one thing about creating good systems is that you have to take into account the behaviours of malicious actors.

Did the user get punished at all?

He was penalized for insulting someone during the game, but the moderator didn't mention anything about him exploiting the system, despite me putting it in the comments. I am unsure if the moderator can even verify that claim.

[RicardoRix]

When there are 500 real things to fix, then taking time to fix something that is only a problem because of moronic behaviour sure feels like a waste of time in comparison.