Unfair behavior

[RicHunter]

What do You think about my last Ark nova game's end? Opponent kicked me during my last move (because of delay), however I was still acting a 3 move combo... Repeating moves. Before I was never late, the turn was at 100% progress, and i was still palying cards. Obviously I could probably win. I did not found a way for report unsportsmanship like this...

[RicHunter]

Sure based on rules he has right to act this way, but I think this behavoiur was very unfair move...

[Hervor]

This topic has been discussed to exhaustions several times this year alone.

Just to name a few examples:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34183
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... ir#p179992
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39140
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... it=timeout

I'm pretty sure no new arguments will be found in this thread.

[RobertBr]

I did not found a way for report unsportsmanship like this...

You cannot report it because your opponent did nothing wrong. If it was a 2 player game its not even a problem. You played badly (by exceeding the time limit) and your opponent 'clocked' you, which is a perfectly legitimate and equally valid way of winning and is part of the rules you agreed to when you started playing (if you don't like this you can have picked an option where it did not apply).

There is a known issue with multiplayer games where player A exceeds their time and is expelled by player B which adversely affects player C - that is unfair on player C who neither made the mistake nor had any say in the decision. But while that is a known issue there has never been a strong consensus on how to resolve it.

[Jellby]

Unfair as in taking more time than allowed in a turn?

[Ceaseless]

If it was a 2 player game its not even a problem. You played badly (by exceeding the time limit) and your opponent 'clocked' you, which is a perfectly legitimate and equally valid way of winning and is part of the rules you agreed to when you started playing (if you don't like this you can have picked an option where it did not apply).

There's something to be considered about the increment system itself though, some games should have their increment triggers per certain actions rather than moves. Some games have increments on turns where a given turn may require a larger period of time not because of how long it takes for a player to think and make moves but because the sheer volume of actions takes up that much time, causing even a speedy player to end up timed out. I don't know the circumstances of this specific case, but it is a general concern for some games.

[Meeplelowda]

Sure based on rules he has right to act this way, but I think this behavoiur was very unfair move...

When someone decides to clock you is up to their discretion, and you never know what kind of person you're playing with.

The last time I clocked someone was in a turn-based game at 4 moves per day, +6h00 per turn (maximum 24h00). The first time they went over time by more than six hours I just ignored it. When they finally made a move I wrote in the chat "I wasn't sure if you were coming back." No response. The next time they exceeded the limit by 12 hours or so. I looked at their history and they time out in roughly 10% of all the games they play and play a couple dozen turn-based games at a time. I looked more closely and noticed that they seem to make moves in *all* of their turn-based games once per day (regardless of the game's setting) around the same time every day.

The next time when I noticed they were 24hrs over the limit, I copy-pasted the time settings for our game in the chat. It was a gentle nudge that I figured would not violate the rule against aggressiveness in chat. Still no response. They made a move. I made a move. And once again they got to 24hrs over the limit. I made my move, then expelled them. Unlike them, I choose not to play dozens of turn-based games at a time, and this game that was basically taking 4 times as long as it should. Miraculously, after I expelled them, they located the chat box to complain. I did not respond.

Now some people would say I could have expelled them when they went 1 minute over, let alone 6 hours, and they are right. Others would say that by not expelling them immediately I was agreeing to never expel them. That's a curious take, but a person could choose to be that lenient. Still others would say that as long as they were making moves, even at 4x slower than the increment for our table, I should not have expelled them. If they had responded in chat (English is the only language in their profile) we might have been able to come to an understanding about expectations.

That's a long winded way to say I would not have expelled you under the circumstances you describe, but many people will. And even I have my limits. The only sure defense is never giving them the opportunity to expel you.

[Kayvon]

No one can just immediately kick you unless you go over the time you committed to, typically multiple times. The first time you go over and someone tries to kick you, you have 30 seconds or so to resolve the situation. You won't get kicked! The next time you have only 20 seconds. It keeps going that way, giving you even more time than you were allotted just to be nice.

[RobertBr]

There's something to be considered about the increment system itself though, some games should have their increment triggers per certain actions rather than moves.

That is an issue but its not a BGA issue. The game developer decides when to increment. So if a game has that issue that is a simple matter of going to the bug reports and asking for a change because the increment isn't working.

[nik592]

There's something to be considered about the increment system itself though, some games should have their increment triggers per certain actions rather than moves.

That is an issue but its not a BGA issue. The game developer decides when to increment. So if a game has that issue that is a simple matter of going to the bug reports and asking for a change because the increment isn't working.

I believe that sort of thing has already been asked about regarding the double/triple actions you sometimes get in Ark Nova, and one of the devs weighed in and said the tricky part is that players can undo their double/triple action selection, but you can undo the adding of a time increment on the dev side (so this becomes easily open to abuse).

There's several discussions on this in the Ark Nova forum, here's one with 11 pages of opinions and suggestions: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31674. It's not as easy as some might think. On the other hand, there is also a suggestion for a play time with a high time bank but low time added per turn that could help with this (see https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=144459).