Unfair behavior

[ChiefPointThief]

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

Unfair like being allotted the same amount of time in your final move as the first in a game in which the amount of actions required for a turn triples by game end.

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).

The main problem here is bga inability to provide an adequate clock for all of their games. What option could they have picked? The option in which there is no time limit at all and the game could possibly never end (friendly)? Or should they choose slow and give everyone the ability to drag the game throughout its entirety just because 30 extra seconds is needed in the final turn? The problem with this second option is that people like you and jellby think that just because bga's clock can allot more time then needed that there isn't a problem with players taking the full 6min on an auto action so that they can do miscellaneous things around the house other than actually play the real time game.

Bga only has a limited subpar clock system for its games. Often times it can pass but clearly as you can see for games like ark nova it is problematic.

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.

It is a shame that ppl think you should have to go through such extreme lengths to not be labeled "aggressive". It is not aggressive to open dialogue w/ your opponent when they are taking too long and you shouldn't be reported for doing such.

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).

I was going to direct robert to the same thread. The devs are limited according to Tisaac. If I'm not mistaken Tisaac also said the posted bug report wasn't possible due to limitations in that thread.

[Ceaseless]

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).

I skimmed through the 11 pages. Is there really no way to reduce time? I saw comments to that effect, don't know if that's changed lately. I thought I saw games like Wizards of the Grimoire where the time could snap back on you so that the undo feature couldn't loop, but I wasn't really keeping my eye on the timer to confirm. Can you make it that undo doesn't give time back at all? Even in the Ark Nova thread I saw someone talk about being able to limit the undo gains to once per game, which is close enough, assuming I read the concept correctly. Tisaac said it seemed reasonable enough, though I never saw what the follow-up looked like after they dug into it further for implementation viability. What about eliminating undo entirely and using the confirm button?

This is a subject I know next to nothing about, so I'm pretty much spitballing off the top of my head + the stuff I skimmed hoping I hit a passable idea on the way.

I suppose the solution of having a no increment full time given game would be another idea, though you're playing with fire hoping that you don't hit a long game with lots of turns dragging you through the mud.

[Hervor]

Unfair like being allotted the same amount of time in your final move as the first in a game in which the amount of actions required for a turn triples by game end.

But that is what the time bank is for... If a normal turn takes me 30 seconds and the last turn (or any other turn) takes 3 times a long, I have the time bank to use on that special turn.

[ChiefPointThief]

You played badly (by exceeding the time limit) and your opponent 'clocked' you,

This logic is flawed considering that there are games in which you can grant yourself more actions than your opponent based on play. In fact, you can argue the exact opposite of what you stated.

If there is a 2p game of stone and one person has 5 meeples and the other 10 then most likely the player w/ 10 is going to use more time per turn. But that doesn't mean they are playing "badly" and they can be using less time per action overall than their opponent. If you read that ark nova thread there are several players complaining that overall they used less time than their opponent but was clocked on the last turn. You can say that they played so great that they enabled themselves to have a super big final turn with tons of actions. Meanwhile, their opponent played so poorly that they had less actions and didn't need the entire clock to do their final turn.

Which brings us back to the issue of there not being more flexible clock options. For a game like ark nova the available clock options are not the best.

[Grimwold]

People are aware of the time allocated, right?

If the game can make a turn very long, play with a more generous timer, or turn based with 24 moves per day.

[Jellby]

You can say that they played so great that they enabled themselves to have a super big final turn with tons of actions.

If you set yourself for a super big final turn that's so big that you can't finish in the allowed time, it's your fault.

Even in very asymmetric games where the resources and goals of different players are completely different (and where it could be argued that they should have different time settings), the fact is the time settings are known to all players and agreed before the game starts, and it's part of the game to make moves in time. When the time is physically not enough, or unrealistic, that should be reported as a game bug. I'm thinking of games where the timer doesn't increase at all between turns, which I have seen a few times in beta.

[ChiefPointThief]

You can say that they played so great that they enabled themselves to have a super big final turn with tons of actions.

If you set yourself for a super big final turn that's so big that you can't finish in the allowed time, it's your fault.

Even in very asymmetric games where the resources and goals of different players are completely different (and where it could be argued that they should have different time settings), the fact is the time settings are known to all players and agreed before the game starts, and it's part of the game to make moves in time. When the time is physically not enough, or unrealistic, that should be reported as a game bug. I'm thinking of games where the timer doesn't increase at all between turns, which I have seen a few times in beta.

The allowed time isn't even the issue here. Your argument is still flawed because the issue here is that people are actively taking their turns but are not given more time after every action. Typically the clock works in this fashion. Take an action and get more time. If you take your same logic and apply it to a game like Terra Mystica I'm sure TM players would flood the forums as well. There are different factions that can generate more resources/turns in a rd than others. One in particular (the treasurers) main gimmick is to accumulate more & more resources as the game goes on. How much resources you have by the end can be an indication of how well you are doing. If terra mystica used a clock that only replenished at the end of the round instead of after every action no one would pick treasurers (or other factions like them).

[JLnKJ]

Happend to me a few times too.. I'm a bit slow though lol. maybe if there were a way to increase turn times toward the games end? it can get soo complicated in the last few rounds. and sometimes unexpected extra oportunities show up (or you miss a necessary requirement) ..