Weird situation with a player going over time in Swiss system tournament

[Skrybowiedzma]

I was playing a turn-based tournament game of Azul. One player went slightly over time (few hours or so), but noone kicked them. Then today we finished this game, for the few last turns everyone was online and we played it quickly almost like a real-time game. However, the player that was over time played weird moves that seemed like trolling or kingmaking - taking a lot of the tiles and placing them on their floor when they could have placed them on the board or pick some other tiles to score them some points. At first it seemed like an overlooked missclick (they placed on the floor a lot of the tiles that would be a good move to place in they last row), but the next move was just like it - a lot of tiles placed on the floor with zero reason. Another player also did the same - placing tiles on floor with no reason. The game then played to the end - I had the table open, so I saw the animation of tiles moving to the boards with my own eyes, so it feels to me that it should be considered a game that ended properly. I also watched a replay of the last move

However, just after the game, there was the notification that the player that went over time quittet or went over time, so they lost and everyone else is the winner and we all will get 60% elo. Two players have information under their nicknames that they have quittet and their turn are skipped - the one that was over time and another that had 2nd lowest points (the another one with a lot of tiles on the floor with no reason). The player that went over time got 0 points in the tournament and the rest of us got 4, where normally its +6/+4/+2 points for 1st/2nd/3rd place. It feels so unfair to me, as I was near having double the points of 2nd player and the 3rd one (the one that had the information that they left) had much, much lower than the 2nd player. I have no idea why this happened - the game was played to the very end, tiles were moved to the board, the points for rows, columns and full colors were added. Can someone explain this to me?

Also, it seems it is no reportable behaviour? I red-thumbed both players that acted weirdly, but if I try to report the kingmaking (though I'm not sure that was their intention, it seemed the best on the list of reasons), there was an information that there is no reason to file a report and the best way to fight it is to give a red thumb. I checked that no of the players have previously played with any other of the player from that game and they are not friends. But I have absolutely no other idea why they would do something like this.

[RobertBr]

Also, it seems it is no reportable behaviour?

Since it seems unlikely either player did anything it would not reportable. From your description is sounds like a player was kicked for being over time at 60% progression and another player then took the option to quit but you opted to carry on playing. If you did that then their moves are going to be randomised by the systems because they are no longer playing.

[nik592]

Yes, as Robert says, the player who went over time was kicked by another player. Then a third player also quit after the first player was booted, as the game was already neutralised at that point. So players 1 and 3 were essentially set up as very basic AIs (basically just do a legal move, sounds like take any tiles and put them on your floor row, since that action will always be possible), while you and player 2 continued to play. This is why turns happened quickly for players 1 and 3 (I'm guessing player 2 was online with you), and why they made "strange" moves. You could argue to have red thumbed player 1 for running out of time, but player 3 did absolutely nothing wrong with what you've described. I also usually will quit a game after someone else has booted someone, since the result is already neutralised and there's little point playing against the kind of "AIs" I described above (they present no challenge).

Also, as far as player 1 running out of time, bear in mind it's a tournament, which means timing is fixed. Unless things are very lucky, generally one player (or occasionally a couple) will end up having it be their turn through their sleeping hours and their time will run down more quickly than others. At the point they were kicked, they were only 3 hrs over and had been playing regularly. I personally wouldn't kick someone on that basis, and having been in that situation more than once (being that I am located in Australia, so other people regularly play when I am sleeping), I don't typically red thumb if the player shows all signs of trying to complete the game (in fact, I typically red thumb those who boot me under those circumstances). Red thumbs are your own choice, but I'm not sure your reasons for giving those players red thumbs are perhaps what you thought.

[Skrybowiedzma]

Wow, thanks for the explanation! That changes a lot in my judgment of the situation. I've seen before a player being kicked from a regular game and there were no randomized moves at all, it was like they didn't exist in the game and their turn was completely skipped, so I was sure those nonsense moves are made by humans and maybe I don't get why because of cultural differences or maybe thats just malicious trolling. If that was just AI, you are right, I don't think they did anything wrong. Thank you for changing my mind! What happened with the tournament scores still feels a bit unfair to me, but I guess there is no better way to handle such situations.

[Meeplelowda]

I've seen before a player being kicked from a regular game and there were no randomized moves at all, it was like they didn't exist in the game and their turn was completely skipped

Completely skipping a player kinda works for some games (for instance, if one of the legal moves is "pass"), but not all. It's up to the dev to decide how the game will proceed once someone is booted.