Having terrible luck with people timing out on Turn Based Games

[Cile]

I have been having some bad luck lately at my tables of Beyond the Sun. I'll create a table for '2 Moves per day' and get someone who only checks the table once a day.

I recently had a 3rd person join a table and start the game, the 2nd player went first and took their move within 5 minutes. The third player, who had joined the table not 5 minutes prior, then didn't take their first turn for over 24hours.
I proceeded to wait for this player to frequently take 14-20 hours to take their turn for a several days (sometimes they got lucky with the time player 2 finished their turn and actually played relatively quickly, banking some time) until they used up their banked time and I kicked them.

I thought it was just a bad luck one time thing, but a couple games later I got another player that timed out and had to be booted. Recently I started another game and had a player take 18 hours to make their first move. I don't understand why someone would join a '2 turns per day game' if they don't have time to actually make a move until the next evening.

Is there something I can do to avoid this? These players have 100% karma when they join so Karma limits don't help. I don't like having multiple tables of the same game going as they blur together and I lose track of what my strategy was in each.

Is the problem with my expectations and the culture of BGA is more accepting of people regularly taking longer turns? I choose '2 moves per day' as I consider it reasonable for me to be able to make my move within 12 hours of my turn. I haven't gone to '3 moves per day' because if it becomes my turn shortly after I go to bed or start work I won't be able to take my turn within 8 hours, but if that is more the culture of BGA maybe I should try that instead.

Or maybe I have just had a string of bad luck.

[nik592]

I don't think there's a standard of what people like to play. I personally always start my games at 4 moves per day and won't usually join something for less than 3 moves per day, because I like my games to run faster. I too get people who run over their time limits consistently. Sometimes I think people just don't think about what the time limit means.

Eventually, it's your choice. You can either accept their speed and continue the game (because you want to play, not just keep starting new games), or boot them, red thumb, and eventually, you should weed out a lot of people who do that (depending how many people there are in the pool of those who do that). I tend to do a bit of both - if they're playing regularly, I leave them to play, and by the end of the game, I make a decision as to whether or not to red thumb based on whether they were only slightly over (missed their turns a couple of times) or a lot over (missed their turns a lot). Even if they're only slightly over, I then choose not to green thumb them either. If I meet them again, perhaps I will do a thumb rating then. I've also removed green thumbs from people I've previously played on this basis.

If someone disappears for more than about 3 days though, I boot and red thumb. For some probably life gets in the way, others may just forget they've joined a game, maybe some take on too many games at once, but in the former case, the karma hit should be easily recovered as that shouldn't happen too often, and in the latter cases, they need to learn not make a habit of that. And if it's anything else, if they're just a rude person who joins games and doesn't intend to play them on time, then the red thumb is probably justified anyway.

[katmk]

What are your own timings like? You mention you don't want to be penalised when you go to bed but are you on more frequently during your waking hours?

There is the option to select Fast turn-based, 8 turns a day for example, which sounds like a lot but it allows you to then set a 12 hour playing slot. Out of this time slot, your counter doesn't go down. This is often my preference, as I generally check first thing in the morning, around lunchtime and if my opponent's timezone is relatively similar to mine, can usually finish them off in the evening.

If you really are only on once a day, then it sounds like you will just need to accept your recent poor luck and hope that it doesn't continue.

[Leard]

Set karma threshold to restrictive or very restrictive. Boot out any players that go over time. And red thumb them all. If everybody did this, then we'd be able to clean up a lot of the mess and hopefully drastically reduce the number of players we get matched with that don't stick to the allowed time.

[Cile]

A lot of players are involved in a lot more games than I am. If a player is involved in 10+ games, and more than 1 table of the same game, they are less likely to notice if it hasn't been their turn for a while because someone has used up their thinking time. Do players get a karma hit if they use up their thinking time but don't get booted? Or just the clock warning if you view their profile?

A nice filter to have would be "Ran out of time in fewer than x% of recent games".

[Jellby]

No expulsion -> no karma penalty.

I think you (may) get an e-mail notification if another player runs out of time in a turn-based table. But I suppose many players will not expel others from a turn-based table, because there's almost no downside to just waiting forever.

[Calmon70]

I have been having some bad luck lately at my tables of Beyond the Sun.

Arena games tend to be played faster and also usually more game affine people. Beyond the sun arena is 3 players so if you don't mind playing arena you could join here.

[Cile]

I thought arena games were live. How many turns/day is the arena?

[jesslc]

I thought arena games were live. How many turns/day is the arena?

That's up to you - in the old play now lobby you can click on the gear for arena settings and set up what preferences you like. Probably there's a way to set it in the new lobby too (I haven't used it for Arena yet). The default Arena preferences, if you don't change them at all, will find you arena games that are 1 move per day (most likely) or (less likely) either 2 moves per day or 1 move per 2 days.

I wrote lengthy reply to a post on BGG about my experience with trying to find faster turn based games on BGA a while back. Some of it is probably stuff you already know but perhaps some of it will be of use to you, it's here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/296062 ... 7#41063467

(Edited to add - I should have mentioned that the post linked above was written before the new game lobby was released. When I talk about manual mode, I mean the manual mode in the old "play now" lobby. Which I still use most of the time because I find it much better than the new lobby.)

A thing that I didn't cover there is that it's worth taking into consideration the buffer time given. For example on the 3 moves/day setting (8hrs per move), you always start with a buffer of 24hrs on the timer. So if you're not able to manage 8hrs overnight while you sleep that won't be a problem, you'll only run out of time if all or most of your turns take up more than 8 hrs.

[Cile]

A thing that I didn't cover there is that it's worth taking into consideration the buffer time given. For example on the 3 moves/day setting (8hrs per move), you always start with a buffer of 24hrs on the timer. So if you're not able to manage 8hrs overnight while you sleep that won't be a problem, you'll only run out of time if all or most of your turns take up more than 8 hrs.

That's why I asked if the culture of BGA is different than I expected. Personally I would consider it rude to join an 8hrs per move game and regularly take longer that 8 hours to take my turn even if I don't come close to using up my reserve time.
If the culture of BGA is "as long as you don't exceeded your reserve time it's all good" then I will adjust my expectations and probably start doing 8 hours/turn games.