why is there so many rude players here?

[Lara8818]

I'm not sure if the moderators either changed or are following some new moderating guidelines or now have Hanabi experience or what, but the last person I reported for bombing did get a karma penalty.

That's interesting news, thank you for sharing! I'm still not sure how it could be enforced with perfect fairness when such tactics as screaming (blind-playing your left card to clue another player to do the same) and the like exist, unless coupled with the player declaring in chat that they intend to bomb.

Bombing will equally lose 10 ELO for both parties, and is the same as all parties agreeing to abandon for -10 points. Deliberate bombing to end the game doesn't benefit the bomber nor the other people at the table in any way, no matter the reason.

It ends the game quickly. I have been bullied many times (although less often since a concession became an ELO hit) for not agreeing to abandon a game, with the accusation that I was the one being the bully by 'trapping' the other players into sitting through another [X] rounds of a game they are no longer enjoying. If someone would prefer to bomb than finish out a game that they agreed to start, they can square that up with their own ethics, I don't really care, so long as they're not making me complicit in cheating.

If you really don't want to deal with or the other people aren't agreeing to abandon for the ELO loss, then just take the karma hit for quitting and RT them after so you don't run into them again. There are plenty of ways to get karma back quickly.

Quitting is also an option, though not one I would use personally. RT-ing, on the other hand, is a tactic I use vigorously, though I do wish there were a 'co-op games only' RT feature.

In either case, if the other person is being extremely rude, just go on autopilot and discard cards, even.

That's the tactic I go with when a game has been too tainted by chat info to finish fairly. But I'm stubborn and patient enough to sit through the abuse that I get while doing so. Not everyone is.

[Zozoken]

people are being so aggressive and toxic :O
chill bro?

The reason why players are so aggressive and toxic in Hanabi is a combination of the nature of the game itself and certain player personalities not understanding how to navigate the social subtleties of cooperative games.

First of all, let me just say, Hanabi is a fantastic game. Though I don't play it on here very often, I have found the game is much more enjoyable with a small group of like-minded players that have a shared interest in learning the game. So it may be worth the effort to find friendly people that are willing to learn Hanabi with you.

That being said, the main problem stems from how certain players view perceived mistakes and how they handle it. Ideally, players will see mistakes as a good learning opportunity that can be used to improve everyone's skill level. Experience is the best teacher, after all.

More often though, you will find players that see mistakes as completely avoidable and costing them a perfect run. They will often resort to quarterbacking, as in trying to tell someone what to play or how they should play as if they were playing a solo game. Instead of saying "This is great! Let's all work out together what happened here so we can all learn from it", they often take the attitude of "Why did you make such a play? Don't you know the conventions?! You made us bomb!" If someone feels like they are being blamed for mistakes... they will probably leave the group (or even the game entirely).

This problem isn't just in Hanabi. I've experienced this on BGA in the werewolf style game Trusis and to a lesser extent Burgle Bros. Find friendly players that share the same attitude as you and play with them. Eventually, you may find Hanabi enjoyable enough to learn conventions that most people on here play with. There are many resources out there for Hanabi. That will allow you to branch out and play with a wider range of players.

And most importantly, if you desire to improve, take the time to review the game after it ends and treat mistakes as golden opportunities to learn and improve.

[hfyr]

people are being so aggressive and toxic :O
chill bro?

The reason why players are so aggressive and toxic in Hanabi is a combination of the nature of the game itself and certain player personalities not understanding how to navigate the social subtleties of cooperative games.

First of all, let me just say, Hanabi is a fantastic game. Though I don't play it on here very often, I have found the game is much more enjoyable with a small group of like-minded players that have a shared interest in learning the game. So it may be worth the effort to find friendly people that are willing to learn Hanabi with you.

That being said, the main problem stems from how certain players view perceived mistakes and how they handle it. Ideally, players will see mistakes as a good learning opportunity that can be used to improve everyone's skill level. Experience is the best teacher, after all.

More often though, you will find players that see mistakes as completely avoidable and costing them a perfect run. They will often resort to quarterbacking, as in trying to tell someone what to play or how they should play as if they were playing a solo game. Instead of saying "This is great! Let's all work out together what happened here so we can all learn from it", they often take the attitude of "Why did you make such a play? Don't you know the conventions?! You made us bomb!" If someone feels like they are being blamed for mistakes... they will probably leave the group (or even the game entirely).

This problem isn't just in Hanabi. I've experienced this on BGA in the werewolf style game Trusis and to a lesser extent Burgle Bros. Find friendly players that share the same attitude as you and play with them. Eventually, you may find Hanabi enjoyable enough to learn conventions that most people on here play with. There are many resources out there for Hanabi. That will allow you to branch out and play with a wider range of players.

And most importantly, if you desire to improve, take the time to review the game after it ends and treat mistakes as golden opportunities to learn and improve.

Thanks for your advice!! This apply to real life too!!

[SallyValencia]

I agree with you !
It would be great if we could tag table « in it to win » or « chill and relax ».
I don’t care about winning or losing, I like playing that’s all

[Zozoken]

I'm in the strange situation where I do care about winning and performance (making me competitive), but I also want the other players at the table to have agency to make the moves they feel is best even if that costs us the game (making me relaxed). If I'm telling others how to play their turns, all I'm really doing is playing a glorified solo game and forcing the other players to be my audience. That doesn't sound like much fun to me.

[Malo77]

I think most problems comes from a mix of people playing at different skill level and/or different mood and expectations.

There should be more options.

There already is chill and relax: "friendly" mode (without points)

There are missing:
- a grand master level 900+
- a way to select players level more precisely with a range like 650-750
- chats / no chat option
- an arena for pure competitive players
- earning at least 1 point when perfect game is achieved
- display used conventions: sometimes people use different or more advanced conventions not everybody knows

@SallyValencia maybe you should set game in friendly mode.
@Zozoken what you do is a kind of teaching game .. that could be great to have this option friendly/teaching game
That is nice for the less experiences players who want to learn and progress

[arisanana]

I'm still not sure how it could be enforced with perfect fairness when such tactics as screaming (blind-playing your left card to clue another player to do the same) and the like exist, unless coupled with the player declaring in chat that they intend to bomb.

Definitely agree that "perfect" fairness is not going to be secured, but in the instance I managed to report them for bombing (and the moderator in charge acknowledged and warned them against doing so) — to me it feels obvious that someone made an intentional bomb and that it was not a blind play for another person to mirror IF at least in a 2 player game, I gave no indication they needed to play the position of the card they bombed so I follow and mirror them and then the card I played also turned into a bomb, and then they continue to play random card and bomb; else: I don't follow them because I'm scared of the previous situation, and they continue to bomb and the card I would've played if I mirrored was not a playable card at the time of the bomb.

Alternatively, they continue to bomb and bomb if I ignore the first bomb.

Basically though, mostly stuff that you can analyze by looking at the log for.

It ends the game quickly. I have been bullied many times (although less often since a concession became an ELO hit) for not agreeing to abandon a game, with the accusation that I was the one being the bully by 'trapping' the other players into sitting through another [X] rounds of a game they are no longer enjoying.

That's true, but at the end of the day, prior to the concession losing ELO, the biggest reason those kinds of people had to bully you was because they wanted to leave without having to suffer a penalty — so now the only ones who are left are just ah, put nicely, people following logical fallacies because the leave button is perfectly fine right there — if they don't care about losing ELO to end the game quickly, then they shouldn't care about quitting. Which means that, given that they DO care enough to blame you over it or bomb instead of leaving (which is even faster than waiting between turns to bomb end!!), they're just being malicious and want you to suffer the same ELO loss. In which case.... well surely someday a way to report that type of maliciousness and the moderators to acknowledge it will arise, even if 10 years later. :')

Quitting is also an option, though not one I would use personally. RT-ing, on the other hand, is a tactic I use vigorously, though I do wish there were a 'co-op games only' RT feature.

'Tis true, 'tis sad that RT is site-wide. Bright side though, if they're rude enough that you want to RT them in the coop game where you should be working together instead of aggroing against each other in, then they're probably not worth leaving an open door for in other games where you have to fight each other in. Plenty of games here that are inherently competitive already, yet still get accusers and bullies in many different forms.

[arisanana]

I think most problems comes from a mix of people playing at different skill level and/or different mood and expectations.

There should be more options.

There already is chill and relax: "friendly" mode (without points)

There are missing:
- a grand master level 900+
- a way to select players level more precisely with a range like 650-750
- chats / no chat option
- an arena for pure competitive players
- earning at least 1 point when perfect game is achieved
- display used conventions: sometimes people use different or more advanced conventions not everybody knows

Obviously, BGA agrees with "chill and relax" being the friendly mode, given their change from calling it "training mode" to "friendly mode". But at the end of the day, it's still precisely that: a training mode. No risk, no return, no nothing other than spending time repeating rote actions. Bonus: you're stuck being Hanabi tutor if the other people at the table are new to Hanabi, because friendly (training) mode has no time limit — and that means even if you're the greatest Hanabi teacher with the patience of a saint, you did not sign up to spend your lunch break chilling playing Hanabi teaching a newbie all the conventions. Or all the rules of how avalanche and black even work to begin with.

Just because someone wants to play at a "chill and relaxed" mood, doesn't mean they don't want points to be part of that. When you play Hanabi with close friends (actual friends, not someone you friend requested on BGA and don't actually have conversations with), you're not going to throw a fit and quit being friends with them because y'all had a losing streak that cost you both -50 or -100 points each. You had fun, y'all tried your bests, and sometimes the card draw stuffs every single 2 at the bottom of the deck and makes it literally impossible to complete perfectly (and without being perfect at master level, that means you're losing ELO). Same deal for people who want to play without having to fuss about the wins or losses — they enjoy the rise in points if they win together in a chill room, and they accept the loss of points if they don't have that perfect game. But that doesn't mean they want a boring game where they gain or lose nothing — what kind of time spent is time spent dully?

As for the "missing" things:

• grand master level 900+: 1) ruins ELO privacy that prevents the phenomenon of "prejudice and discrimination on sight" that is extremely prevalent because we're all humans. 2) moot point because let's be real, there'll always be a request after this for even higher ELOs. 3) ELO levels are consistent throughout BGA — and NO non coop game is going to benefit from this (in fact it'll just be adding yet another unachievable tier to the list) because MOST competitive games on here don't even have ONE player that's reached master level most of the time. This only benefits Hanabi, literally. (Unless there are other coop games that have an ELO system that makes losing ELO possible)

• precise ELO range selection: 1) same as point 1 above. 2) otherwise a good idea in theory, but what are you gonna do when "omg these players' ELO's are inflated, they're at 650-750 ELO even though they don't know anything about finesseeee"? 3) would table hosts even use this filter?

• chats / nochats: doubtful that BGA has a way to enforce this or will within the next couple or few years: Narabi has a table setting called "advanced mode" — part of this is a rule that says "no chatting allowed", but on a technical implementation level, players are still able to freely chat during these tables and this rule can't be enforced, only respected by player will.

• arena for pure competition players: the fact that you're suggesting this at all for a "cooperative game" is a huge red flag but to humor you: 1) who is supposed to be the loser you take ELO from? 2) what you really want is a ranking system to compare ELOs on 3) literally the solution is to just make a BGA group where the screening criteria is to have 900+ ELO, have someone monitor this daily or weekly, and then limit tables to this group. simultaneously will be easier to track who has higher/highest ELOs among this group. make a spreadsheet for them, even. 4) on a technical level, not gonna be possible unless all coop games also get arena access lol

• earning at least 1 point for perfect games: 1) there is a way to do that. it's called deigning to play with players that are 500 - 700 ELO points below or above you. 2) if you could earn 1 point for ALL perfect games, your ELO would be inflated. ELO is a device to measure your skill level, or at least tell others about your approximate skill level — once your measure stabilizes (commonly around 700-900 ELO), it rises if your skill increases. that's the basis of ranks too — listing who has better or worse skills and showing that change when rankings change. if a 900+ ELO player can get someone with at least 500-700 less ELO than them to win a perfect game with them, at their level, that's skill. and as "competitive Hanabi players" like to behave, if a 900+ ELO player gets a perfect game with a 900+ ELO player, that's not skill, that's a given. 3) otherwise your only option is to beg the Hanabi dev(s) to change the ELO system to ensure all wins result in a gain and all loses have no penalties — Narabi, Similo, Bandido, are a few that follow this type of "ever upwards only" coop ELO system. It would reduce the angst for failing games drastically, honestly.

• display used conventions: if you mean as part of the UI when playing, great, fantastic idea. but the table settings do already offer a lot of not really used "conventions" — if you're talking about specific "techniques/moves" that people use that fall under some general umbrella of "super advanced finesse because it's built upon the fundamentals of finesse", the notes area exists to set table expectations where you can write out exactly what advanced moves are expected to know. some people do bother using this notes area, but most are too lazy to. or perhaps don't have the power to since they can't host the table.

alternatively, i say BGA should implement a thing like among us and many many other lobby making games where the table host has the right to kick a player in the middle of the game. solves everything, really. don't like my rules, get out of here then. reshuffle their hands and tiles into the deck again. whether the kicked player loses karma or elo or both, idk, not my problem to figure out that balance there. and if it's a malicious table host, then ban them from hosting privileges. win win.

[Aoimoku]

people are being so aggressive and toxic :O
chill bro?

"Oh, you're not reading my mind??? I'm throwing the game and report u!!!!!!!!!"

Average Hanabi player

[Ant Stewart]

people are being so aggressive and toxic :O
chill bro?

"Oh, you're not reading my mind??? I'm throwing the game and report u!!!!!!!!!"

Average Hanabi player

This comment could go either way.

If a player has set up a game, and specified a convention, they probably aren't asking you to read their mind but to play according to the agreed upon convention.
If someone refuses to play the convention that was agreed in the game settings, then for some players, it is preferable to just end the pain quickly, rather than try and play through with another player acting unpredictably.

If you find this happens a lot to you, then it may be that you are accidentally joining a game with a convention that you aren't familiar with.

Generally speaking, most people are happy to teach the convention that you are in. So if you aren't sure you can ask in chat for clarification.
And when you do mess up (everyone messes up), then a quick message in the chat saying "sorry", goes a long way to ensure that the room stays polite. Messing up a game and not apologising is a very efficient way to annoy the other players on your table.

If you aren't sure why something caused a misfire, or caused something important to be discarded, then the safest bet is usually to assume that a clue was misinterpreted. Write in chat something like: "Ah sorry, I wasn't expecting that, could you explain what just happened please".

No one expects you to know the conventions from the start, but if you join a game with the convention set up, there is an expectation that you either know it or are willing to learn.

If you don't want to play by a convention, then that is also completely fine, you can set "No convention" in the game settings, which will ensure that you are paired with like minded players.