A question concerning timing rules

[Cile]

Let's say: I am in a three player Azul game.

We are in the endgame. One of my opponents has burned all of his allotted time, and is now in the red, but has an insurmountable lead. My other opponent should easily be able to secure 2nd if they play their final turns correctly. But if they misplay, I can still claim 2nd place.

Obviously, I can time the leader out now, secure a neutral result and walk away with my elo unchanged. But it is more advantageous to me to wait and see what Player 2 does, I will gain elo if I secure a 2nd place result without timing the leader out. My question is: does BGA consider this sort of manipulation of timing tools to be legal?

As the 2nd place player in this scenario: I have already kicked the player in the red, be they first place or third place, as soon as they were in the red. I joined a table playing at the speed I want to play at, if you can't keep your turns within the time limit pick tables with longer turn timers. I have also red thumbed the player going over their time limit so I don't match with them again.

If for some reason I didn't immediately kick the out of time player and the 3rd place player waits until their last move to do so, that would just reinforce to me to kick players as soon as they are in the red because if I don't someone else will anyway. I'd probably red thumb both players in this case. 3rd place did not break any rules, I would not comes to the forums to complain about them.

If you have a suggestion for how the system could be better you can post in on the suggestions forum and let other users vote for it. I propose penalties for running out of time to happen automatically when a player hits 0:00 and not require users to enforce the rules of the site: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=99953

[PaulB-UK]

I get your sentiment, but I find the way timers are handled in turn based tournaments slightly problematic.

They don't refill, and people who are playing a timely fashion can run out of time (particularly when timezones mean they are first to log off at night). Combined with the fact that there's usually plenty of time to finish the game in the allotted time even if a player is over, and the fact the site behaves differently if a player is kicked compared to the game running out of time and you get a fair amount of upset.

[RobertBr]

I am simply using the commonly accepted understanding that "manipulating reporting systems to secure a competitive advantage" is cheating.

No you are not. This is a known issue. It has been a known issue on the site for a long, long time. To be explicit the system works exactly as intended with 2 players - go over your time and you lose (the site allows non-competitive players to ignore the lapse). Clocking is a perfectly legitimate way to win, it is not cheating or even bad sportsmanship.

As is very well known on the site the system does not work well extended to multiplayer games. The player in last place has good reason (from a tactical point of view) to clock anyone who goes over time. This is unproblematic from the point of view of the player in last and the player who is clocked but it causes an unwanted side effect for the other players in the game.

The reason you are getting push back is that no-one cares any longer about opinions on the sportsmanship of it (you should have avoided saying 'cheating' or attempting to defend your use of that word), its simply too old of an issue and it is now widely accepted that the person in last has no reason to deliberately lose a game they could have drawn. The only thing anyone wants to hear at this point is concrete suggestions of how it could be organised differently and it transpires that is much harder than it appears (judging by the fact no consensus on an alternative has ever developed).

[blundermoth]

But it is more advantageous to me to wait and see what Player 2 does, I will gain elo if I secure a 2nd place result without timing the leader out.

But if you get 2nd place, the 3rd player may expel the leader and nullify your expected gain

lmao, I hadn't considered that... and of course, "The system works for 99% of players!"

[blundermoth]

Let's say: I am in a three player Azul game.

We are in the endgame. One of my opponents has burned all of his allotted time, and is now in the red, but has an insurmountable lead. My other opponent should easily be able to secure 2nd if they play their final turns correctly. But if they misplay, I can still claim 2nd place.

Obviously, I can time the leader out now, secure a neutral result and walk away with my elo unchanged. But it is more advantageous to me to wait and see what Player 2 does, I will gain elo if I secure a 2nd place result without timing the leader out. My question is: does BGA consider this sort of manipulation of timing tools to be legal?

As the 2nd place player in this scenario: I have already kicked the player in the red, be they first place or third place, as soon as they were in the red. I joined a table playing at the speed I want to play at, if you can't keep your turns within the time limit pick tables with longer turn timers. I have also red thumbed the player going over their time limit so I don't match with them again.

If for some reason I didn't immediately kick the out of time player and the 3rd place player waits until their last move to do so, that would just reinforce to me to kick players as soon as they are in the red because if I don't someone else will anyway. I'd probably red thumb both players in this case. 3rd place did not break any rules, I would not comes to the forums to complain about them.

If you have a suggestion for how the system could be better you can post in on the suggestions forum and let other users vote for it. I propose penalties for running out of time to happen automatically when a player hits 0:00 and not require users to enforce the rules of the site: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=99953

In the actual game the player waited until after all their turns had been played before kicking me. My only goal here is to clarify what BGA's position on this is, I have done that and now cancelled my subscription. I have no wish to help them for free, if they want to pay me a consultancy fee they can get in touch.

[Gulchen]

... concrete suggestions of how it could be organised differently and it transpires that is much harder than it appears (judging by the fact no consensus on an alternative has ever developed).

​
There would still be some of the problem, but I believe that for a majority, the issue is just BGA not implementing the suggestion:

Allow mutli-player game developers to opt in to having
the continuation of the game with a zombie in place of the timed-out player
determine the rankings of the other players, rather than ranking
those players equally and having the continuation be purely optional.

[Jellby]

Many games cannot continue once a player drops out. They have different rules/components for different number of players. Other games could work, but with a compromised balance: some players will be benefited and other players harmed by the removal of one player.

In any case, players signed up for a game with N players, they will not necessarily be happy with an N-1 game, so at the very least they should be allowed to quit with no penalty.

[Cile]

I have no wish to help them for free, if they want to pay me a consultancy fee they can get in touch.

You vastly overestimate the value of your thoughts.

"This should behave exactly the way I want and it doesn't! No I won't tell you how I want it to behave unless you pay me!"

Good talk.

[Gulchen]

Many games cannot continue once a player drops out. They have different rules/components for different number of players. ...

While the developer could implement this differently - for example, by having the zombie choose some do-nothing option
even when a normal player would have to make a different choice - I imagine that in most cases, the rules/components
would stay the same: ​ Any choices the timed-out player would've made, are instead made by the zombie.