Out of Time penalty -- too high

[keybounce]

So far, I have played only 5 games here. I'm new. And today I had my first case of "out of time" and kicked out by the other players. While finishing my move.

In the specifics of this case, I was in small world; I had finished the main part of the turn (the conquest), and just had troop redeployment and a special ability to go into decline at the end of the turn (whole reason I paid an extra for it).

I had hit the "I would like more time please" button when I knew I would run low.

What I would have expected: At worst, all choices are made randomly. (Heck, that would have finished my deploy, and had a 50% chance of activating that decline special).

What actually happened: I took an extra penalty -- both to my karma, and to my rating for "forced last place loser" -- and my next turn was skipped (negative time), so even when I was able to rejoin later, it was a ridiculously high penalty (Loss of end-of-turn actions; loss of a second turn; karma penalty; elo penalty).

There is a difference between "not playing and out of time", and "actively putting in moves and out of time".
While a *tournament* game might very well rely on "out of clock = loss", a *fun* game should not.

[Suoivax]

So far, I have played only 5 games here. I'm new. And today I had my first case of "out of time" and kicked out by the other players. While finishing my move.

In the specifics of this case, I was in small world; I had finished the main part of the turn (the conquest), and just had troop redeployment and a special ability to go into decline at the end of the turn (whole reason I paid an extra for it).

I had hit the "I would like more time please" button when I knew I would run low.

What I would have expected: At worst, all choices are made randomly. (Heck, that would have finished my deploy, and had a 50% chance of activating that decline special).

What actually happened: I took an extra penalty -- both to my karma, and to my rating for "forced last place loser" -- and my next turn was skipped (negative time), so even when I was able to rejoin later, it was a ridiculously high penalty (Loss of end-of-turn actions; loss of a second turn; karma penalty; elo penalty).

There is a difference between "not playing and out of time", and "actively putting in moves and out of time".
While a *tournament* game might very well rely on "out of clock = loss", a *fun* game should not.

What happened is exactly what you agree to when playing a game with time limits.

Friendly mode has no time limits.

Or play a game with slower time limits.

[Jellby]

I had hit the "I would like more time please" button when I knew I would run low.

That's just a message to other players. They may see it or not, and if they see it they may grant you more time or not. If they had already taken suboptimal choices because they were trying to make their moves in time instead of trying to find the absolute best move, they may not be very inclined to give you more time. And in any case, please note that they don't need any reason to not grant you more time, it's just a game rule in BGA: if you run out of time, you're in a vulnerable position.

[Seriq]

So far, I have played only 5 games here. I'm new. And today I had my first case of "out of time" and kicked out by the other players. While finishing my move.

In the specifics of this case, I was in small world; I had finished the main part of the turn (the conquest), and just had troop redeployment and a special ability to go into decline at the end of the turn (whole reason I paid an extra for it).

I had hit the "I would like more time please" button when I knew I would run low.

What I would have expected: At worst, all choices are made randomly. (Heck, that would have finished my deploy, and had a 50% chance of activating that decline special).

What actually happened: I took an extra penalty -- both to my karma, and to my rating for "forced last place loser" -- and my next turn was skipped (negative time), so even when I was able to rejoin later, it was a ridiculously high penalty (Loss of end-of-turn actions; loss of a second turn; karma penalty; elo penalty).

There is a difference between "not playing and out of time", and "actively putting in moves and out of time".
While a *tournament* game might very well rely on "out of clock = loss", a *fun* game should not.

What happened is exactly what you agree to when playing a game with time limits.

Friendly mode has no time limits.

Or play a game with slower time limits.

The problem with this reasoning is that it automatically assumes that out-of-time situations can only happen on purpose. Like "you agreed to this time format, why do you now WANT TO PLAY in a different time format?". A lot of time what happens is that you can't finish a game for external reasons. Like when you thought you had free 30 minutes, but then you're asked to attend to something suddenly. It happens, it's normal, no one can predict the future. You can't just tell people "well you should only start a game in a situation where you know you won't be interrupted with a 100% confidence" because it's *physically impossible.* And in situations like these (given, of course, that you're under 50% and cannot just concede) you are completely at the mercy of your opponent. If they, for whatever reason, decide they won't allow you to abandon, you get a karma hit. This happenned to me just now, where I was called away for some work stuff unexpectedly on turn 1 and I told my opponent as much, and they said "well it's your choice" and proceeded to kick me. I mean, if it happenned after a turn in the game that was really lucky for them and unlucky for me, I would understand them treating my request with suspicion, but on turn 1, why would I lie to try and get out of a game? When I let them know how petty and frustrating their actions werr, they said "good" as if they got some sick please out of taking a hit on my karma. Like... come on.

The worst part about this is that karma hit is unconditional and 10 at once, while karma upgrades are strictly manual and only by 1 at once. If, for whatever reason, your opponents don't feel like green thumbing you (I imagine, for the most part it would be not of ill intent, but simply because they don't give it much thought and just navigate away from a finished game immediately to queue up again), you might get stuck for quite a long time. And lower karma means greater chances of people immediately dropping out of playing with you, meaning an even slower grind back.

Just let us concede at any point in the game. I don't see how conceding at 0% is any more frustrating to my opponent than conceding at 50%. I would argue that it's actually *less* frustrating to them, as there's less time sunk into that particular match. Let us conded so that we don't need to rely on the wims of strangers to not lose our karma when our laundry machine breaks down or something.

[Meeplelowda]

The problem with this reasoning is that it automatically assumes that out-of-time situations can only happen on purpose. Like "you agreed to this time format, why do you now WANT TO PLAY in a different time format?". A lot of time what happens is that you can't finish a game for external reasons. Like when you thought you had free 30 minutes, but then you're asked to attend to something suddenly. It happens, it's normal, no one can predict the future. You can't just tell people "well you should only start a game in a situation where you know you won't be interrupted with a 100% confidence" because it's *physically impossible.*

And if those "life happens" moments only happen occasionally, it's no big deal. Karma rebuilds with each completed game. If they happen so frequently that someone's karma tanks, then the karma score is an external indicator that they need to adjust their behavior.

[RobertBr]

Just let us concede at any point in the game. I don't see how conceding at 0% is any more frustrating to my opponent than conceding at 50%.

As with all these discussions they are deeply unproductive when the vast majority of vocal participants have no idea how things work. The OP did not understand how the clock worked, you don't understand why their is a limit on concession. The limit on concessions has nothing to do with appeasing the small group who complain that their opponent 'deprived them of joy'. It is there to stop abuse of the Elo system (namely, opening a game and immediately conceding to boost the other accounts Elo). You could argue that its not strictly necessary, best handled another way, or now redundant (because, if my memory serves, the changes to apply fractional Elo results post-dated the concession restriction), but it is silly to frame your argument in terms of something it was never meant to address.

[nik592]

The worst part about this is that karma hit is unconditional and 10 at once, while karma upgrades are strictly manual and only by 1 at once. If, for whatever reason, your opponents don't feel like green thumbing you (I imagine, for the most part it would be not of ill intent, but simply because they don't give it much thought and just navigate away from a finished game immediately to queue up again), you might get stuck for quite a long time. And lower karma means greater chances of people immediately dropping out of playing with you, meaning an even slower grind back.

Whether your opponent gives you a green thumb has nothing to do with your karma. In fact, whether they give you a red thumb no longer impacts your karma (for some time now). All you have to do to regain karma is finish a game without exceeding the time limit. Nothing manual about it. Some people talk about playing short games to get your karma up quickly, but if you've only lost 10 points (or even 30), nothing on the site is restricted for you (and very little at 30 points down), so just play and you'll get back up.

Emergency situations should be happening rarely. My husband does an on-call portion to his job on some weekends and he's almost never called in. But maybe every now and again, we have to drop what we're doing so he can attend to something (he never plays real-time BGA, so he doesn't have an issue with that, but whatever else we're doing). It's pretty rare, so it's not a problem. If your on-call situation tends to have more frequent calls, then maybe treat it like you're working and not on standby - either play turn-based, or wait til you're not on-call. I've rarely had situations when I've gone over time and been booted (in regular play, tournament play is another thing, and I get booted more regularly there, but that's a whole other issue), and I've never worried about regaining my karma. But I play lots of turn-based, especially when my kids are underfoot, because when I've tried to play real-time, they tend to distract me, and I've been booted (fairly) for that. So I stick more to turn-based.

[Falzano]

A lot of time what happens is that you can't finish a game for external reasons. Like when you thought you had free 30 minutes, but then you're asked to attend to something suddenly. It happens, it's normal, no one can predict the future. You can't just tell people "well you should only start a game in a situation where you know you won't be interrupted with a 100% confidence" because it's *physically impossible.*

It's not phisically impossible...
When I go playing tennis, I'm 100% sure that hour is dedicated to play.
Well, ok, not 100%... Let say 99%?
When 1% happens, the club where I booked the pitch requires me to pay the hour anyway, and I do that also for my opponent, and propose to offer him a beer to apologize for let him waste time.

You should have this approach also at BGA.

[jwanders]

Just had a similar experience. In a game of Space Base, ended up with a super complex build with multiple things to active and tons of decision points. Played as fast as I was able, but still ran out of time. One opponent was rude about it, accusing me of "going afk", and I was booted as soon as my clock expired.

Wasn't intentionally playing slow but still got a penalty and accused of "quiting" the game. Believe me, there's been plenty of games I wished I could quit but stayed in until the end. I wonder if it would make sense to give players just a little more time for every game action, to mitigate things if you do end up in a situation like mine or the OP's that just requires lots of clicks?

And, well I agree with the concession issue for ELO abuse, I think it's also important as some games rely on a certain player count. Having someone just leave half-way through can really ruin the game for everyone else. Maybe there could be an option to concede at any time for certain games, like how some have a turn-based option and some don't? I do agree that concession at 0% progression (with no ELO affect) could be allowed, though again maybe game-based to avoid "my opening hand sucks, I quit" situations.

[FrankJones]

There are games that legitimately do not have sufficient clock (when playing real-time) to complete some of the more complex move sequences possible.

I do not play any of those games in real time. I find opponents who play fast-turn based, and we will often up playing mostly synchronous real-time, but we can step away if the doorbell rings, or we need a bathroom break, or, we have a complex move with a lot of actions.

I understand this solution might not work for everyone, but it's likely a viable solution. Getting the developers to add more clock options for real-time is likely not viable. Each game has 3 settings, and I would guess they're unlikely to be changed unless a significant number of players for that game make a request in the suggestion forum.