Perhaps the time has come to say the unsayable about expulsion

[buu441]

All of these posts would probably vanish if the site implements automatic expulsion when someone runs out of time. In the current form, we just get a bunch of these entitled posts trying to vilify people who enforce it. Like how hard is it to understand that the one going into red is in the wrong, and not the one expelling. You know what time controls you are signing up for, if that is too fast for you, play at slower speeds. Surely one more per two days would be sufficient. If that is also too fast, I guess there is friendly mode without any time limit.

Auto expel is a bad idea. This results in people getting expelled from games where people are happy for overruns. Eg people playing with groups of friends, having someone say brb and letting them time out a bit isn't an issue. Nor is it too much of a problem in a turn based game if someone goes slightly over. There are several games I can think of (eg Not Alone) where it's not uncommon for someone to dip into the red on a tricky turn. Then there is the example of a teaching game. Beginners might well go over. Most people tolerate a small deviation when it is sensible and not someone being unreasonably/deliberately disruptive. Auto expel is actually worse than the current version IMO

I always ask if the person is there, give them some time THEN expel if no answer and/or it's dragged out for several minutes. The current system isn't perfect but it's better than this proposal.

This only works if the players understand that they are in the wrong and risk getting expelled if they go into red. Which is clearly not the case, given how many of these type of posts show up in the forums. Too many players go into red and then start acting like they are the victim when they get expelled, always super happy to find someone else to blame. I'd rather have the system enforce it. I'm sure these type of people will still find something else to blame, but hopefully it won't be another player at the table.

[Shivaware]

All of these posts would probably vanish if the site implements automatic expulsion when someone runs out of time. In the current form, we just get a bunch of these entitled posts trying to vilify people who enforce it. Like how hard is it to understand that the one going into red is in the wrong, and not the one expelling. You know what time controls you are signing up for, if that is too fast for you, play at slower speeds. Surely one more per two days would be sufficient. If that is also too fast, I guess there is friendly mode without any time limit.

Auto expel is a bad idea. This results in people getting expelled from games where people are happy for overruns. Eg people playing with groups of friends, having someone say brb and letting them time out a bit isn't an issue. Nor is it too much of a problem in a turn based game if someone goes slightly over. There are several games I can think of (eg Not Alone) where it's not uncommon for someone to dip into the red on a tricky turn. Then there is the example of a teaching game. Beginners might well go over. Most people tolerate a small deviation when it is sensible and not someone being unreasonably/deliberately disruptive. Auto expel is actually worse than the current version IMO

I always ask if the person is there, give them some time THEN expel if no answer and/or it's dragged out for several minutes. The current system isn't perfect but it's better than this proposal.

I agree with both of you

I think it could be helpful if there was an option (off by default) to have auto-expulsion when you create a game.
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=128688

[Cile]

I agree with both of you

I think it could be helpful if there was an option (off by default) to have auto-expulsion when you create a game.
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=128688

The problem I see with this is that the players who complain about being kicked from the table are also players who aren't bothering to check the table settings before they join. If they don't see that they can't play within the time limits of the table, they won't see that they will be automatically booted when they run out of time. When that only happens in some of the games they play they'll blame the table creator, and complain on the forums that the option exists for table creators to be "mean".

[Shogun2049]

I generally won't expel a player until they've gone 1 minute in the negative, but even then, I'm very lenient if I notice the player is still active. I tend to use it only if the player appears to a)be stalling just to be annoying, or b) they've disappeared. I'd rather finish playing a game instead of just taking a cheap 'win".

One way I think a lot of you need to look at it is by asking yourself this question: If we were sitting at a table playing this game, would I get up and leave or announce a player has lost, if they are taking long turns? I understand it can be frustrating, but if you were sitting across from these players and decided to just walk away and tell someone they lost because they're taking "too long" on their turns, you'd be considered rude or a jerk.

People need to learn some patience. I play only in realtime and quite a few games are much, MUCH faster here than in a real life setting. If you really don't have an hour to an hour and a half to play a game, you shouldn't play a realtime game or you probably just need to wait until you do have that much time. I can play a game of Scythe with 3/4 players here in about an hour to an hour and a half. A lot of other games that would be 20-30 minutes, can be played here in under 10. Just a little more patience and adjusting your settings to fit your realistic needs will solve a lot of the issues.

My issue is more along the lines of "play faster please", with the "please" being used sparingly around here. If you didn't have the necessary time set aside to play, you shouldn't have started the game. You know Orleans is going to be at least an hour. If you don't have an hour and a half set aside to play Orleans, then please don't join a table or go to turn based.

[buu441]

One way I think a lot of you need to look at it is by asking yourself this question: If we were sitting at a table playing this game, would I get up and leave or announce a player has lost, if they are taking long turns? I understand it can be frustrating, but if you were sitting across from these players and decided to just walk away and tell someone they lost because they're taking "too long" on their turns, you'd be considered rude or a jerk.

Doesn't hold here, unless you are playing with clocks/timers in the irl tables you speak of. If everyone at the table agrees to play with a timer, then it is very reasonable to tell someone that they lost once their time runs out. Also, comparing randoms online to friends irl is a bit weird.

My issue is more along the lines of "play faster please", with the "please" being used sparingly around here. If you didn't have the necessary time set aside to play, you shouldn't have started the game. You know Orleans is going to be at least an hour. If you don't have an hour and a half set aside to play Orleans, then please don't join a table or go to turn based.

It is very funny how the blame, according to you, falls on the table creator who knows what time setting they want for their table, and not on the person who joins a table too fast for them and are unable to keep up with the clock. No one is asking the players to "play faster please", they are only asking them to follow the rules of the table they agreed to play with.

[Jellby]

My issue is more along the lines of "play faster please", with the "please" being used sparingly around here. If you didn't have the necessary time set aside to play, you shouldn't have started the game.

Saying "play faster" to a player who's playing within their allotted time can be rude, but can be also a simple polite request: Can you play faster? Yes? Thank you. No? OK, I'll deal with it.

Saying "play faster" to a player who's already in the red is exactly what you're saying: You know how much time you have per turn, if you cannot play within that time, don't join the table.

[Leard]

To add to all of this, there seems to be a complete lack of communication from almost all players when they go into the red. Nobody apologises, and nobody explains how long they’ll be or provides any updates.

If you sign up for a game with a timer and then go way over time, it’s rude and unsportsmanlike not to even offer an apology. I’ve seen more people make excuses for going over time than just apologising and explaining.

[frogstar_A]

All of these posts would probably vanish if the site implements automatic expulsion when someone runs out of time. In the current form, we just get a bunch of these entitled posts trying to vilify people who enforce it. Like how hard is it to understand that the one going into red is in the wrong, and not the one expelling. You know what time controls you are signing up for, if that is too fast for you, play at slower speeds. Surely one more per two days would be sufficient. If that is also too fast, I guess there is friendly mode without any time limit.

I come to board games from a history of chess. In chess the very moment you run out of time you lose.

I was surprised BGA isn't like that, and it would save a lot of hassle.

[Romain672]

I will put here an idea I got on another post, which is to make the player who goes out of time lose 1% of it's gain of elo at the end of the game per second he is out of time (up to 50, 80, or 100%). Even in games where time is extremely important (Turing machine would be my first pick), that look fair to lose like 10% of gain for 10 seconds out of time. If you goes above that in that game, imo it could have been avoided (per example by taking an extra turn).

I lose fun on playing that game because of time problem, if you instantly force the person to leave 20s after he is out of time it look like I'm the bad guy. If I let the other person think 120 more seconds, I will lose more elo in average (not to mention that I got mad once after I clicked on 'I will try to guess a code' before totally finishing all of my thinking (so I took an extra 1 or 2 minutes still being on my available time) and the other player got mad, not understanding what's going on and telling 5 messages in chat in 1 minutes. I could have instead take 20 or 120s out of time before guessing a code, which could have been worst).

And then after I waited 2 or 5 minutes, I finally click to 'expel player' and need to wait an extra 20 seconds to finally expel them, which is always annoying.


Chess rules to instantly make the other player lose look great for fast games since you just start another one. If you are in a 40 or 120 minutes game, that's another problem since you usually want to finish the game (not to mention cooperative games which could be an exception).

My first idea would be to separate arena/tournament/high elo table from other ones. There could be an icon that it's an arena game and when you put your mouse on it, it explains what arena is and tells that going out of time instantly lead to you leaving the game.

In high elo tables, firstly putting a threshold of like 300 elo is artificial. Secondly having 299 elo vs 800 elo would be weird whatever you decide to do. And thirdly not letting the choice of players of playing with immediate expulsion or not look really bad.

When you play a tournament turn based, we sometimes got some complains about people expulsing players right before the end of the game. But tournament is competitive, the only problem of expulsing someone immediately is if them not playing would ruin the game for the three others players. But maybe actually that's worst: letting players choose between be ethical or win the tournament after checking the consequences look worst.

So maybe just limiting that to arena and tournament could work?


If that's done:
- there should be a message explaining the differents rules for tournament and arena
- you should put an extra 30s in thinking time imo
- and put the alarm of time 40s & 10s before being out of time
- if someone goes out of time, instantly expulse them

If you take my idea:
- same a message explaining
- disable expulsion
- make a player when going out of time have a timer of 80s descending down and which is never refilled (the normal timer is still refilled)
- expulse that player if he goes out of time of it's 80s
- make that player lose 1% of it's gain of elo by each second that timer decrease


My timer bug report which report all timer problems I know of: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=101440 .

[raelee34]

To All-

Many times in a game, I would like to do a big move, but I hear the time "gong" and just have to draw a card. My opponent, however, takes 20-30 seconds over time to play their turn. I really don't like to expel player's who are out of time, but it really irks me that my ELO goes down when I lose to a player who only wins because they taking more time each turn. I think if you win with a time penalty you shouldn't gain ELO and I shouldn't lose it.

I wish BGA would not reward time abusers with ELO.

Thanks for letting me vent!