Option to play without allowing trades to be disabled

[Cos-]

On another thread where I expressed my frustration with having other players turn off trades and utterly ruining the game for me, someone suggested that I could create tables with a message. I actually had never noticed that feature before, but I found it. Since then, I've stopped joining anyone else's Catan tables and only created my own, always with a message telling people not to join table unless they will leave trades on.

Mostly, this has worked; the percentage of games in which people turn trades off has gone way down.

However, it's far from perfect. On a number of games, people turned trades off accidentally, sometimes without even knowing the feature exists. In several cases, I and other players at the table had to talk them through it - first convincing them that they really did have trades disabled, which they often were skeptical of at first. Several people didn't know it was possible to do (but did it anyway), while others just didn't intend to but must've clicked on it and not noticed.

One time, a player turned trades off because what they wanted to do was stop getting emails from BGA. They thought "notifications" meant emails, and if they clicked that it just wouldn't email them. It took a couple of rounds, and a lot of chat, before we made that player understand that it actually made them not see other players' trade offers.

Another time, a player who turned off trades never responded on chat through the whole game. Eventually, another player ran out of time and I just ended the game without penalty at that point, but I would have let the game continue normally and not expelled the out of time player if it weren't for the other player turning trades off. They just never seemed to see the chat messages so I have no idea why they did it.

Obviously, there are plenty of people happy to join a "you must leave trades on" table, but this doesn't really work. What we need is a way to create a table where the option to disable trades is really not available. Like other options, it would be clear to everyone looking at the table list, and people who feel they must disable trades just won't join those tables. Those of us who think that ruins the game completely, though, would at last have a way to play real Catan (you cannot "disable trades" in a real life game, you always hear the offers, you can choose to reject them).

I posted a suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=74393

Whether you like disabling trades, or don'r, please vote for it, as this will keep everyone happier.

[Cos-]

Just had a couple of tables in the past two weeks where someone turned trades off despite the table saying you should only join if you will leave trades on. Other players all asked them to turn trades back on, and in both cases, they did so after being asked. One of them seems to have done it on purpose because they didn't see the table message. The other one did it by accident.

We really should have this option in setting up a table, to avoid these problems. People who want to be able to turn trades off can avoid tables that don't allow that, and people who don't want to play with people who won't even see their trade offers, can have this option and not have to deal with this. Relying on adding text to the table, and using chat to remind people, is clumsy and slows games down a lot.

Again, whether you want to be able to turn trades off or not, having this option available in the game will make things better for you. Please click and vote for it.

[Cos-]

The lack of this option just ruined another game. I want to describe what happened because it's a great illustration of why this option is necessary.

Ever since I found out that you can create tables with descriptions, I've stopped joining anyone else's Catan tables, and always create my own, that always say you should only join the table if you will keep trades turned on. This has greatly reduced the number of times I end up with players I call "trade hiders" - those who disable trade notifications and just don't see the trades being offered. But while it works most of the time, sometimes this happens:

Halfway through a good, competitive 4-player game, I offered a trade and noticed only one of the other 3 players could see it; the other two had turned trades off. I messaged the table chat explaining that this table was created with the rule that you must keep trades on, and asked the other two to turn theirs back on.

Due to time zones or whatever, I don't know, they didn't happen to be looking, and neither of them responded for the rest of the day. I re-offered my trade and saw they still had theirs off, and couldn't tell if they saw my message. Since it's a fast turn-based game, I was going to run low on time. So I said okay, fine, I resign - I will pass every move from now on. I also clicked the button to collectively quit. Then I passed my turn, even though I had plenty of resources, since I wasn't going to play with people who turn trades off - I find it very very very much not fun.

Well, guess what? Turns out the other players had just forgotten, and hadn't seen my message. One of them finally responded in chat that night, saying they turned their trades back on. They said "no" to quit the game. But it's too late - I already passed on what could have been a good turn, because I was done with the game. So I'm passing my remaining turns now. The game is ruined for all of us, but I'm not going to pick back up on a very close game where I passed a good turn - I wouldn't enjoy that either.

Both of these other players would have been fine with keeping their trades turned on, they just were away that day and didn't see the chat messages and forgot this was the table rule.

If we had had an actual game option to not let people turn trades off (except when someone is trade-spamming, for just that turn), this and other games I've had like it would not have been ruined. People wouldn't have a chance to forget that they're not supposed to disable trades, if they join a table that requires trading be on the whole time. We'd all 4 of us have continued with this game and enjoyed it.

This is not the first time this has happened. We need this option to stop wasting people's times with ruined games like this. I will NEVER enjoy a Catan game where anyone turns trades off, and there are many many people on BGA who are quite happy playing Catan without turning trades off - as is obvious from the many tables I start with that message that people join and stick with. But because we don't have it as a game option, we still get messed up like this sometimes, and waste games we're already been playing for a day or two or three.

Please click on my suggestion linked above, and vote for it.

[Romain672]

Here is I think a suggestion more general to make others not miss the table description: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=13408

[Cos-]

That's a useful suggestion in its own right, but it won't solve this problem with Catan.

I voted for it though, thanks for pointing it out.

Please vote for mine as well: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=74393

[Cos-]

Another turn based game of supposedly-Catan, ruined more than 3 days into the game, because someone who turns off trades snuck into one of my tables. It says it's their first game of Catan, so it's likely the don't even understand what the "notifications" options mean, because it's so poorly implemented and confusing - but they're also just not seeing any chat messages, so the game is ruined nonetheless.

Really gross. What a mess of a game implementation.