When to kick a player

[RedWolfe75]

I’m curious when people feel that it is ok to kick an opponent from a game.

Let’s say you are playing a real time game. Your opponent is taking their turns regularly without fail for just over an hour. You are losing the game slightly.

Then suddenly one turn, their 3 or 4 minute timer runs out, and the option to kick pops up.

Do you;

1. Kick immediately
2. Wait another minute or two
3. Wait indefinitely
4. Try to communicate with the player?
5. Other?

Just curious how people feel about the etiquette around this. Happened to me, i was trying to look up a card. Then i took my turn. Hitting confirm just as my turn ran out of time, and i was immediately kicked. It’s really frustrating that my opponent and i had a good game going and they tanked the entire thing without communicating with me at all.

[Ceaseless]

Any of the above. They ran out of time, it's on them. They got a 10 second warning from the system before timing out, and after timing out they're given free reign until they get an additional 20 second countdown. After that you still have to manually choose to kick them. That's more than enough leniency. They failed the time requirements and that counts as a loss condition, so feel free to claim the win.

But if you want to go further, feel free to wait on them. I've had times I thought there might be a glitch and waited to give them a chance to get back. I've also even allowed players to think over time.

To be clear, there is no obligation to wait. The default is that they should be timed out immediately for losing the game. That is the expectation of the time setting. That doesn't mean you have to time them out, you can give them more time at your discretion, but there should be no expectation that you must wait.

[RedWolfe75]

I agree with what you are saying, just left a sour taste in my mouth that we had this good game going with quick turns and the first opportunity to kick he pressed the button. To me, it felt like he didnt see a win was possible so took this way out.

I guess whenever i play and am in that situation, i always reach out first to check on the player. There are a multitude of reasons why their turn took longer this one time.

[Jellby]

It depends. Do I care enough about the result of this game? Did I enjoy playing so far or was it a pain (for any reason)? Do I have something else to do while I wait? Do I have something else to do after the game? Am I trying to get some kind of achievement (e.g. victory streak, elo/arena rank)? Have I had any previous positive/negative experience with the player before?

[schulni]

I've posted this elsewhere, but to me kicking someone out immediately at the first opportunity is poor sportsmanship. I always check in with them and give at least two minutes. If I don't get any kind of response, I might wait a little longer, especially if it seems like they've disconnected and might be able to get back on (sometimes the game will indicate that someone has disconnected). Life happens! There are so many reasons someone might unexpectedly go over their time limit once that have nothing to do with getting a competitive advantage. If they are totally gone with no communication for five minutes, I will probably kick them out and move on. If they repeatedly go over time, I'll probably gently ask them to stick within the time and see what they say. I'd rather play than secure a cheap win.

[h_illes]

When they run out of time, I usually just say 'time' in the chat first. If they respond in like 20 seconds, and indicate they will move, I wait. If not, I will start the 20 second countdown for kicking them. That also plays a sound for them, so that's another chance to come back and play. After the 20 second passes, if it's a first time offender, I will usually cancel without penalty, or occasionally switch to turn-based. If it's a repeat offender, I kick them. (This happened just once for the last 100 or so timeouts, all others were cancelled without penalty).

[Jellby]

That also plays a sound for them

... or not, depends on their settings and device. No sounds for me, ever

[nik592]

For real-time games, I normally communicate with them in the chat when the time runs out, and then give them a couple of minutes. If there's no response and no play, I will kick. If I have to boot them or they go over time repeatedly in the same game, I will red thumb. I'm probably catching some people in that who have genuine reasons for disappearing, but it doesn't happen that often, so I figure not many false positives and I'm prepared to live with that. That said, I don't play a lot of RT games, but I work kind of similarly for turn-based, only I give them a few days grace, and I typically don't communicate (because if they were online to see my message, one assumes they would also play their turn).

In your specific situation, I would personally be a little annoyed that you didn't communicate. You know what's going on at your end, and if you initiate the explanation, I don't have to sit and wonder what's going on. In my experience, most of the time, a player doesn't respond to my communication attempts (possibly because they've had an internet drop out or something - it's happened to me as well), so I hold out little hope that anything will come of me trying to communicate. If you know you're over time (or are about to be), then apologise and explain before they kick you.

Though, I'll also add that I recently had a situation (turn-based) where I couldn't work out how to get my turn to proceed in the UI - I explained this in chat, looked up bugs/forums/etc., posted in the forum for the game, and still got booted when my time went red. If other players at the table knew how to proceed, they didn't bother to tell me before one of them booted me. Eventually I got a response on my forum thread, but by then it was far too late. So I will acknowledge that there may be players who feel like explaining may be wasted time as well, since anyone who boots will just boot you anyway. But I still think if you can explain, the onus is on you to do so and not for your opponent to need to ask.

[RedWolfe75]

I agree. I should have paused and said “I’m taking my turn” or something. But I was trying to quickly find an explanation and it took longer than I anticipated.

When I started to take my turn. I figured I had enough time. Then I got a couple options I had to click through and it became a race. I didn’t think he’d kick the literal second that button showed.

[RobertBr]

... it felt like he didnt see a win was possible so took this way out.

This is where you are failing to understand the etiquette. You lost, absolutely plain and simple. You made an error in your play which resulted in a board position that allowed your opponent to take the win. In two player real-time games this is a very clear and unequivocal thing, 'clocking' an opponent is as legitimate and appropriate a way to win a game as any other.

Yes, problems arise in multi-player games, because of internet connection issues, and with turn based, and there are no completely good solutions. The site does its best by giving players the discretion not to kick (it could simply automatically eliminate a player when they go over time) and the option to play in friendly mode without a timer (which has its own issues) but you should always remember the site is giving people the chance to *not* skip you, and when they do that is an act of supreme generosity on their part.