Major improvement about quitting players

[tux the penguin]

Hi,

I'm currently playing on Tzolk'in #12308923.

One opponent (ate01) disconnected (apparently a ragequit.) The remaining player (rcbb) and I would like to make him skip his turn and continue with the game, but every time we try to do this, we get an error message. "Unexpected error: Zombie infinite loop."

This is a pretty bad outcome, needless to say, because not only is the game ruined, we can't even abandon it without receiving a penalty. (Also we cannot downvote ate01.)

Is something going to be done about this apparent bug?

[rcbb]

Hi,

I'm the sucker, rcbb, of this game tux is talking about. I end up being the last one in the room and can't leave without quitting, and I lose 59 ELO points because "ate01" decided to leave in the middle of the game??? Highway robbery. Just can't believe it.

As tux mentioned, we both tried skipping "ate01"'s turn for about 30 minutes, and the only message we got was, "Unexpected error: Infinite zombie loop" ??? Incredibly frustrating.

[Fishwick]

Yeah it seems like they are letting the players become the beta testers.

[Nyx]

I had no choice - I was required to play in a tainted game. I'd much rather of waited until the player returned, or ejected them. . . . Please, there should be some option so I can avoid being in games which allow turn-skipping.

I'm in the middle of Seasons Table n°12242057. One player was a day out of time. Used the skip turn. The zombie randomly chose a die. For Seasons, I think it should totally skip the player: No die taking, No card playing, etc. But I would much rather expel the player. I prefer the old system. This new system is just no good.

[Paun]

Hi guys!

I'm playing Targi with an opponent who is extremly out of time, but I can't skip his turn. A message tells me, skipping isn't possible.
It's during the phase each player places his Targis on the outer cards.
In my oppinion there is a simple solution for a zombie move in that state: Simply place no Targi.

[Liallan]

I had no choice - I was required to play in a tainted game. I'd much rather of waited until the player returned, or ejected them. . . . Please, there should be some option so I can avoid being in games which allow turn-skipping.

I'm in the middle of Seasons Table n°12242057. One player was a day out of time. Used the skip turn. The zombie randomly chose a die. For Seasons, I think it should totally skip the player: No die taking, No card playing, etc. But I would much rather expel the player. I prefer the old system. This new system is just no good.

Agreed. I see you playing turn-based and I'm assuming this one is as well. So you're saying you had a button to skip their turn? Because I was left with the impression that this would happen automatically for turn-based - and in fact, that was confirmed. (Unless it's been changed in the meantime.) Does "skipping" a turn always mean the zombie takes a random turn? That is terrible - that's not a real game. (At least, not when you're choosing to play with real players.)

That would be time-consuming to configure the behavior of the skip turn/zombie thing for each and every game. Even a game like Can't Stop, I wouldn't want an automatic turn. I wouldn't want it skipping a turn, if it allows the player to come back and continue, because that still affects the game. In a game like that, dropping a player altogether would be fine. I'd rather expel the player too. And once someone is expelled, the remaining players have a choice on a group abandon with no penalty or affect on ELO.

[Liallan]

One big gripe I have about this, besides just not liking the idea, is that people are going over their turn time but not getting over-time penalties.

I'm lenient about waiting on other players, and for turn-based I'll even wait out their entire total time as long as it's not like two weeks or something. Stuff happens. I don't care if people have some over-time penalties - it's not about that.

But I don't want someone who is over time a lot. On a one turn/day game, they are over-time after 24 hours and should get the penalty. It's bad enough that somewhere over the past couple of months this turned into a 3 day thing, which I already disliked. Now it seems they have to run out of their total time before this applies. That is even worse. And in turn-based, there's no need for "need extra time on this turn." (You had 12 or 24 or 48 hours already and could spend a half hour on every turn.) I have a current game with a chronic late person, but he'll never get any penalty unless he runs out of total time, meaning this chronic lateness will never show and how would anyone ever know?

Again, it's not the occasional ones that bother me. It's the chronic ones I'm concerned about, but they aren't getting any penalty for being over turn-time.

And I'm going to repeat that the vast majority of abandoners on turn-based games do so towards the beginning of the game, usually newbies. I'm not going to go through entire games skipping turns or having some zombie player take their turn for them. Very few of these abandons have been later in the game because someone is losing. (And oh, funny thing, most of those are PERUDO, which I now find out is cause that option to "leave" causes an abandonment.) Again, turn-based doesn't work the same as real-time.

We need to be able to just expel people.

Yes, there's a problem with people leaving games, and maybe utilizing a skip turn option could work under certain conditions, but it's not going to work the way it was set up. (Now, a few bugs right after introduction I could expect, but I don't think the concept behind how it works is right.)

Not that I think anyone who counts is even listening....

(In fact, except maybe for a pseudo live game set on unlimited time with someone I trust, I won't be taking any new games.)

[Nyx]

. . . you had a button to skip their turn? Because I was left with the impression that this would happen automatically for turn-based - and in fact, that was confirmed. (Unless it's been changed in the meantime.) Does "skipping" a turn always mean the zombie takes a random turn? That is terrible - that's not a real game. (At least, not when you're choosing to play with real players.)

That would be time-consuming to configure the behavior of the skip turn/zombie thing for each and every game. . . . I'd rather expel the player too. And once someone is expelled, the remaining players have a choice on a group abandon with no penalty or affect on ELO.

Yes, I had to go into the game and manually press the "skip button". It did not automatically skip that players turn.

To collectively abandon the game, I would have to message the player and hope they actually read their messages. This is such a pain in the @$$

[Nyx]

. . . the vast majority of abandoners on turn-based games do so towards the beginning of the game, usually newbies. I'm not going to go through entire games skipping turns or having some zombie player take their turn for them. . . . Again, turn-based doesn't work the same as real-time.

We need to be able to just expel people.

Yes, there's a problem with people leaving games, and maybe utilizing a skip turn option could work under certain conditions, but it's not going to work the way it was set up. (Now, a few bugs right after introduction I could expect, but I don't think the concept behind how it works is right.)

Not that I think anyone who counts is even listening....

The person on Seasons Table n°12242057 who(m) I'm skipping is new to the BGA website. And ever since turn-based started, the majority of zombies are people new to BGA. It would be nice to not allow "mortals" to be allowed to play turn based games.

Onto another problem . . .
Real-time Backgammon Table n°12348431: A person who've I played with several times stopped playing right after the game started (probably an internet issue, those things happen, no big deal). After waiting 5 minutes, I had to skip his turn. In the old (much better system), I would have been able to expel the player and get on with my life. Instead, I had to skip him again. Then all of his turns were automatically skipped. I had to move all my pieces off the board! Tedious, time consuming and just plain annoying.
Worst of all, the other player did NOT get an ELO penalty. Just a time out and abandonment penalty.

ARE ANY OF THE MODERATORS READING ANY OF THESE POSTS????? If so, please change it back immediately. This "improvement" is just awful, terrible, abominable, horrendous, atrocious, hideous, loathsome, repulsive, despicable, disgraceful, wretched, vile . . . (yes I am using a thesaurus and could go on-and-on but I have to go back to playing my zombie games).

Signed,
A very disappointed member

[Krystal]

Before the new system I had very few problems with quitting players, so it's hard for me to believe it was a pest affecting us all on a regular basis. I dunno why the system has changed. Now the new system leaves room for opportunists and people without character to do whatever they can if they feel they lose. I was playing Stone Age few days ago with 3 other people. It was the very last turn, when I was supposed to solve all of the people I had on the board. I thought a little, because it was a difficult situation, but I was about to make 40+ points and finish on the first place. I started taking my people off the board, and after one or two, I suddenly had my turn skipped because I was few seconds off time and another player (an indian guy with the id "vbh") skipped my turn, even though I was playing. without asking anything and despite seeing I was taking people off the board. Since it was the very last action-solving turn, I was hitting the get back in the game button in vain, because all of my people were removed from the board. in the end I got a red clock sign and an exit sign!!!! (not to mention that instead of the first place I was on the 3rd, but this really doesn't bug me that much, like the lack of common sense and sportsmanship of that despicable person). How is this fair??