Players Quitting

[Mokey D Luffy]

It is a sad state of affairs that there are players on this site that quit when they are losing, and there is really no penalty for them. Yes, they lose ELO points, but they would have lost them anyway, and nothing is gained by the player that wasted their time playing against them. There really should be a stiffer penalty for quitting a game. The player that quits should lose the same penalty points that they already lose, but in addition, the game should still count as a win for the player that stuck around, and a loss for the player that left, with ELO points thrown counting in addition to the penalty.

Sure, this wouldn't really fix the issues, but some of us have been willing to pay to play on this site, and as long as this site is willing to accept donations stick around, then we should be able to do something about players that intentionally ruin the experiences everyone else. I'd even settle for lifetime bans for the IP addresses that cause the most problems, but something tells me that would be more trouble than it is worth.

I would like to add, though, that I think this site is pretty great, and most of my experiences have been very good. That is why I have been more than happy to contribute money each year to keep it afloat. I just wish we could do something about the dregs of humanity that pop up.

[Tejo]

Hi!
In my opinion adding a victory to a player who "wins" the game because his opponent quits the table isn't a good idea.
First of all, it will be possible only in 1 vs 1 games, 'cause in a lot of games with 3+ players it's impossible to continue the game with one player who left the table (i.e. if someone quits an hearts table who gets the victory? the player who is ahead at that moment, maybe with all the players still at 50 points?).
Additionaly it would cause the chance to cheat without any control... sometimes it happens that a "smart" player creates more accounts to play against himself and winning with the main account, doing dumb moves with the other... but this can be easily checked by the community viewing the games. If you gain a win only because your opponent quits, it will be hard to understand how many times it happens on purpose.

I agree with the part in which you say that the player who quits deserves a bigger penalty... I could understand maybe a new player who quits a table, after starting a game he doesn't know (it will be better to don't make such things, but is understandable), but sometimes you have players who left the game at the last move just to ruin the game to the opponent. For these situations it should be a more discouraging penalty to avoid such behaviours.

[Mokey D Luffy]

It is true that awarding players for winning games when their opponents actively quit could lead to other problems, but this is supposed to be a community of players that like to play games. If I had a friend in real life that just left the table near the end of a game that he was losing, and then always acted like he didn't lose those games, then we wouldn't be playing games together for long. The fact that people are willing to act that way online simply means that the penalty isn't harsh enough.

Sure, my initial idea probably wasn't the best, but I do think that something should be done to discourage players from doing that kind of nonsense. All it does is ruin the experiences for the rest of us, and I feel like the vast majority of people on this site handle those situation appropriately.

[Liallan]

I get the example with your friend, but that's probably a situation where that person knows they are losing and have no way to recover and sees no point in continuing. But there's some differences there. One is that it's a 2 player game. This becomes a bigger problem when it's multi-player. Second is that your friend likely does recognize the loss. Someone leaving a game here doesn't mean they don't "recognize the loss" - just means they stopped playing. They know they were losing. The difference is the system doesn't know they're losing. So difficult to relate that to a face-to-face situation.

Also, we have no way of knowing for sure if that's why they left. I have a rare game in which someone leaves because they were losing, and in fact, I'm not sure that has ever happened. The majority of my games that are abandoned never really get anywhere at all. so no one is losing.

There is also a difference between punishing the person who abandoned the game, regardless of reason, and giving the other person a win. The system can't know why they left, can't know they were losing, therefore can't know who is winning (a higher score at a given moment in time doesn't mean one is winning), and therefore cannot really make a determination of win or loss. Someone would have to look at the game and determine there was no other outcome possible. Yeah, like people have time for that. Conceding the game is not the same thing. When someone concedes, they are admitting to the loss and taking that loss. There is an option for that if the player chooses to use it. (I'm sure some people don't realize that's an option.)

I agree there needs to be something done about the problem, and I totally can see that the punishment maybe needs to be harsher. (I really don't have a clue how much ELO anyone is losing, and who says they even care.) And I understand that if you were definitely, beyond any doubt, winning that game, why you'd want credit/ELO for it, but I just don't think it's a feasible situation to figure that part out. Punishment for abandonment is easy.

[jgbaxter]

Quitting a multi-player game is like giving the finger to your friends and telling them to go frak themselves.

Quitting immediately makes the game more likely to be won by the person in the lead, even if (or especially if) someone else could have won.

Quitting is worse than disconnecting, since that is 'supposedly' an accident (and in most cases might well be).



There should definitely be a way to concede a game by group consensus- other than that I don't think it should be allowed without greater penalty.

[Mokey D Luffy]

When someone quits a game they are losing, immediately starts playing a game elsewhere, and taunts about it in the comments section, I think it is pretty easy to figure out what happened. The fact that somebody does that, racks up a ton of red thumbs, and then just creates new accounts to start the whole thing over again means that the penalties are not steep enough.

[Liallan]

When someone quits a game they are losing, immediately starts playing a game elsewhere, and taunts about it in the comments section, I think it is pretty easy to figure out what happened. The fact that somebody does that, racks up a ton of red thumbs, and then just creates new accounts to start the whole thing over again means that the penalties are not steep enough.

Regardless, no one has argued that there should not be a penalty for these people, and no one has argued that it needs to be a stiffer penalty. In fact, those who have posted have agreed with that.

When I was speaking of not always knowing the situation, I was not referring to punishing the quitters - I was referring to the idea of declaring a winner, and the SYSTEM still doesn't know the situation. What you're saying does not change that.

The only penalty to stop a situation such as you describe is a total ban, meaning finding a way to ban making a new account as well. And someone who keeps starting new accounts is obviously not avoiding losses so as to not have their ELO affected cause they have to start over every time and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So someone like that is either getting bored with the loss or just being a jerk.

And with a lot of situations not as you describe, i.e. people who are not starting new accounts, it's still a problem and still needs a stiffer penalty, perhaps just a bigger cut in ELO? Or getting that "devil" badge, or threat of a ban if someone does it a lot, or whatever. For people who quit just cause they decide they don't want to play, or don't care about the site, I doubt there's much you can do about that. That's a big problem with the turn-based where a high percentage of those quitting are not doing it cause they're losing, so you have to realize that situation as well.

[sourisdudesert]

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback & ideas.

At now, the % of games that finish with everyone on board is 98%, thanks to the quitting penalty system.

Considering some quits are unintentional (ex: Internet problem), I consider that the current system is quite efficient, and probably best than any other website.

If you want to be sure to avoid the quitters, you can also restrict your table to players that don't quit tables.

The system can probably be improved... but again it is quite satisfactory at now.

[Mokey D Luffy]

I apologize to Lilian if my last post sounded aggressive towards you; it definitely was not meant to be.

To reply to the administrator, I try to create tables with those kinds of restrictions, but every once in a while my default settings all reset for some unknown reason, and I don't always catch it in time. Also, having had my share on internet issues in the past, I feel bad excluding people that may have had problems like that of their own. However, I'll just have to be restrictive again, I guess.

I do wish we could do something about people creating multiple accounts just so that they can be as horrible to play with as they want, but I guess there just isn't much to be done.

[squarerootofthree]

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback & ideas.

At now, the % of games that finish with everyone on board is 98%, thanks to the quitting penalty system.

Considering some quits are unintentional (ex: Internet problem), I consider that the current system is quite efficient, and probably best than any other website.

If you want to be sure to avoid the quitters, you can also restrict your table to players that don't quit tables.

The system can probably be improved... but again it is quite satisfactory at now.

Hi sourisdudesert. Thanks for your information. I agree that the system is generally satisfactory. Still, there are a couple of key changes I would suggest:

• The ability to leave red thumbs for people who leave games inappropriately. I recently played a game of Quoridor where my opponent played through the final move of the game and quit on the move where I was about to win. The game is here: http://en.boardgamearena.com/#!table?table=10464039. When I tried to give him a red thumb it said that I couldn't leave feedback because I had not played with him recently! In fact, your "report a player" page even says we should leave red thumbs for opponents who quit games rudely. But I can't. Can we change it so that abandoned games count as playing and I could leave a red thumb?
• Second, I know you're concerned about imposing a stiffer penalty on quitters because sometimes there are just computer problems or it's an accident. But even still, I just think that if you leave a game for any reason (even if accidental) it should just count as a loss. At least in a two-player game. It's not trying to be harsh, just the reality of it.

Just my two cents. Thanks for all of your work.