Lost internet for 3 minutes. Bizarre nonsense resulted. Pleasee explain.

[FrankJones]

Greetings forum,

Table number 627594703, just "completed" a short while ago.

My internet went out. This happens sometimes. Unfortunately, it usually takes 3 minutes to power cycle the modem and have the connection restored. By the time this happened, my opponent had elected to skip my turns and continue the game. Okay, fine. Do actions until I return - that's the opponent's prerogative, right?

The disconnect happened toward the end of gen 12 (I was going to end the game, needing only one temperature and one oxygen, which I could easily do). I returned at gen 13 after the "draft" and while my opponent is taking various actions.

A red box entitled "click to rejoin game" was present, so I clicked it, but it said "cannot rejoin game when time is negative." (MY clock showed minus 1 minute 8 seconds.).

WHAT? So, a 3-minute internet disconnect means I am barred from the game ? More bizarrely, the game would occasionally (every 3 generations, I think, give me back 22 seconds. Eventually I was at positive 20 seconds and allowed to "rejoin" the game. ON GENERATION 22.

In the meantime, my opponent had run out of time as well, and the game prompted whether I wanted to skip the opponent's turns. Obviously, I clicked "yes", but it disallowed that also, saying I cannot skip my opponent's turns while my own are skipped.

So, my opponent drafts cards and plays them and plants greeneries for 8 or 9 generations, and then I can return, at which point I fund two award and start putting tiles on the map. Somehow I still have an easy win, despite sitting out 8 generations.

Then, after my opponent had passed for this generation (22), and I finished the terraforming, the opponent then elected to terminate the game and neutralize the results.

Huh???? Either the game should continue when a player gets disconnected, or not. If the game continues, and the player is able to get his internet back, he should be allowed to rejoin!

I find it unfathomable that, instead, all the above nonsense ensued. SO, I take an ELO loss for a game I obviously had won, AND an extra 10 ELO penalty for "quitting", and probably a Karma hit too, and on top of that, the opponent then gets to neutralize the game and end if after we both continued playing?

This seems like a rather harsh series of penalties for a 3-minute loss of internet.
Once a player elects to continue the game, that player should not then be allowed to reverse course and terminate the game 8 generations later.

And can there not be SOMETHING in place allowing a disconnected player to actually rejoin the game?

This all seemed rather unsportsmanlike by my opponent; I suppose that's my fault for accepting whoever joins my game - this one had a horrible Karma rating and a red warning, "This player has a very bad reputation". Lesson learned.

[Jellby]

When you're skipped, you're out of the game, and you've lost, no matter what.

[FrankJones]

When you're skipped, you're out of the game, and you've lost, no matter what.

That's rough. Is there no way to implement a system where a disconnected player can get back in the game?

Or perhaps the better question is, why, after I was able to restore my internet connection, did the game prompt me about whether I wanted to re-join the game? That was the part that had me most confused.

And, one more question, since I'm still trying to get the hang of this site: When I clicked on my reputation, it showed that for the game in question, I received two penalties. One for running out of time, and another for "quitting" the game. Why a double penalty? If running out of time means the game is lost, then just give a penalty for running out of time. Or for failing to finish the game. Giving both seems excessive, especially when running out time triggered being kicked from the game (My opponent could have easily waited a few minutes to see if my internet connection was restored, but I'm guessing most people probably just kick the player, especially when losing.)

[Suoivax]

When you're skipped, you're out of the game, and you've lost, no matter what.

That's rough. Is there no way to implement a system where a disconnected player can get back in the game?

Or perhaps the better question is, why, after I was able to restore my internet connection, did the game prompt me about whether I wanted to re-join the game? That was the part that had me most confused.

And, one more question, since I'm still trying to get the hang of this site: When I clicked on my reputation, it showed that for the game in question, I received two penalties. One for running out of time, and another for "quitting" the game. Why a double penalty? If running out of time means the game is lost, then just give a penalty for running out of time. Or for failing to finish the game. Giving both seems excessive, especially when running out time triggered being kicked from the game (My opponent could have easily waited a few minutes to see if my internet connection was restored, but I'm guessing most people probably just kick the player, especially when losing.)

you didnt get a penalty for the running out of time, its just "noted" for people to see.

[xspuipuke]

I suggest playing turn-based, then a short internet loss doesn‘t matter. Or, if you really want to play real-time regardless, set the game to the slowest speed possible, hopefully giving you enough time to restore your connection if you lose it.

This problem is not TM-specific but side-wide. This forum probably is not the place to complain about it and to me it looks like they‘re never going to fix it as I see so many posts about it.

[brh2113]

When you run out of time, your opponent has the option to either:

A. Wait around and see if you come back; or
B. Immediately boot you from the game and get a win

The win that they get gives themselves normal win elo multiplied by % game completion, e.g. if they were going to get 9 elo from a win and the game is 33% done, they'd get +3 elo. The elo loss you get is for a full game loss + penalty on top, since otherwise it incentivizes quitting.

They could have waited around, but anyways, in this case your opponent took option (B). 3 minutes is a little rough but in fairness to your opponent, they don't really know when/if you're coming back at all.

The confusing part here is: your opponent can still keep playing rounds, but this is purely for fun/experimentation/seeing what would have happened. The actual game is over already and the rest does nothing, so they'll have a notification that says they can leave at any time. Here it sounds like you rejoined and it was confusing.

Anyways, if you think about the system and incentives, the way it's setup by BGA all makes sense. There's a tradeoff here between punishing unfortunate but honest circumstances vs. preventing griefing by maliciously angry players. In my experience, it generally works quite well as long as you avoid the really low karma players. I'd brush it off and move on; welcome to the site btw!

[Jellby]

Is there no way to implement a system where a disconnected player can get back in the game?

Many games don't even work properly once a player has been skipped, both on the rules (what should the "default" action when a player is missing?) and implementation (deadlocks, errors) sides. I guess there could be some way, but I don't think we'll ever see it.

Or perhaps the better question is, why, after I was able to restore my internet connection, did the game prompt me about whether I wanted to re-join the game?

I don't know. Perhaps you hadn't been skipped yet, or perhaps you could join as a spectator, or perhaps it's a bug.

My opponent could have easily waited a few minutes to see if my internet connection was restored, but I'm guessing most people probably just kick the player, especially when losing.

Most players make a winning move when they have the chance. They could have waited, but they didn't have to.

[FrankJones]

Thank you all for the clarifications.
I'll add some thoughts that are specific to TFM, since this is a TFM forum. These thoughts also pertain to the timers in general. I'll paste part of what I wrote in the discussion on whether to modify the timers to allow more time for an occasional long/difficult turn (or an internet disconnection, as the case may be):



My opinion on why this is a great idea: I'll use two games as an example, along with the three options for starting timer options:

Race For the Galaxy
0:30 / 2:30
0:48 / 3:24
1:17 / 4:51

Terraforming Mars
0:13 / 1:39
0:21 / 2:03
0:34 / 2:42

I am not sure who came up with these numbers, but, wow. Race for the Galaxy games usually take 10-15 minutes total. Experienced players, especially ones more familiar with the interface than I am, probably take 5 minutes total for all their turns. And yet, even the fastest option allows far more time than seems necessary.

Terraforming Mars - This is a game that, when played 2-player without preludes, can go 13-14 generations, involving dozens and dozens of turns, and upwards of 100 actions, maybe more.

And yet, no matter how fast one plays for 12 generations (13, 14, whatever), the clock never goes higher than 2:42, which is not even enough time to allow for a reset of the internet modem if the connection drops, resulting in an automatic loss.

I believe such a long game (really, any game, but especially such a long one) should have some mechanism that allows for sufficient time to power cycle the cable modem before the opponent takes a cheap win by kicking the disconnected player as soon as the clock hits zero.

...........................

TFM is unique (at least among the relatively small number of games I play) in that it doesn't even break the game if a player needs to "sit out" for a few minutes because of something beyond his or her control. It's a disadvantage to the player sitting out, and provides no advantage. And since this is a game in which many situations exist in which one player takes sever, sometimes dozens of turns in a row, what's the big deal about a player being allowed to simply miss a few minutes and then rejoin the game?

I realize this would not work in most games. But in TFM it really is no big deal, and, it was relatively commonplace on the (very lousy and problematic) steam version.

For other games, it obviously would be a big problem, either because the player taking consecutive turns would obviously win quickly (Splendor, Race for the Galaxy, Earth), or because it just isn't possible since actions are required by both players each turn (Earth, for example, though, if a player missed a turn there and simply had to skip the bottom row action, it's not game-breaking).

In a game like Azul, it would not work at all, since skipping a turn is illegal and could result in a 28-point swing (If both players are going to suffer a 14-point floor penalty for taking the remaining tiles, obviously the active player must make the play and not pass the play to the other player.

I understand, from various other threads I've participated in, that the developers seem to be opposed to writing game-specific code for situations like this. But I'm sure it's possible, and I think it would be a nice feature.

Steam games have a global timer (Which is good), but no increment (which is bad, especially for games of non-fixed length, like TFM). There is also no turn timer, so, a rage-quitter basically forces the opponent to wait for the duration of that player's global clock to expire. That's not ideal at all.

Here, of course, we have the turn timer and the increment timer, but no global timer, and I see no reason we cannot have all 3. That would reduce the extent to which a player can abuse the timers in a rage-stall situation, while also allowing for an occasional very long or thoughtful turn, or a disconnect or a bathroom emergency or whatever.