Bad sportsmanship...kicking players out on winning turns

[BrettsPeeler]

So it's been a month since the last post and mine. I guess the moderators either don't read or don't care. Such a waste of time and money, I should cancel my subscription. I come on here for fun, not to get angry.

[Jontia]

Of all games on BGA, this is by far the most toxic. People are kicked for having too many things to do in a turn, the timer ticks while the game is processing the sound effects, etc., and for only 20sec added at the end of a turn, which gets drained for every trade action? Not okay. Please fix the time limits or allow game creators to define the seconds gained back.

And these were friendly games, too, not even Arena matches

You can fix the time limit issue yourself by going into the cog settings on the game and setting the faster turn times to 'I never want to play'. You can do the same by choosing slower turn times when creating the table.

Additionally, friendly games are an entirely different setting, where there is no clock and no ELO. Standard or Simple games are not the same as friendly and you should expect people to play competitively in them.

While I personally would not kick someone for going a little over time towards the end of the game, you have to realise that as far as the game/site is concerned once you run out of time you have already lost. If you manage to finish and win afterwards that is only because your opponents gave you another chance.

[Suoivax]

So it's been a month since the last post and mine. I guess the moderators either don't read or don't care. Such a waste of time and money, I should cancel my subscription. I come on here for fun, not to get angry.

This is not the place to try and communicate with the game developers/programmers, that would be the bug submission/suggestion system. The "moderators" here are forum moderators, they just keep the forums uncluttered and civil.

[BrettsPeeler]

Of all games on BGA, this is by far the most toxic. People are kicked for having too many things to do in a turn, the timer ticks while the game is processing the sound effects, etc., and for only 20sec added at the end of a turn, which gets drained for every trade action? Not okay. Please fix the time limits or allow game creators to define the seconds gained back.

And these were friendly games, too, not even Arena matches

You can fix the time limit issue yourself by going into the cog settings on the game and setting the faster turn times to 'I never want to play'. You can do the same by choosing slower turn times when creating the table.

Additionally, friendly games are an entirely different setting, where there is no clock and no ELO. Standard or Simple games are not the same as friendly and you should expect people to play competitively in them.

While I personally would not kick someone for going a little over time towards the end of the game, you have to realise that as far as the game/site is concerned once you run out of time you have already lost. If you manage to finish and win afterwards that is only because your opponents gave you another chance.

Anyway, it's very simple. I should be able to make my moves in the allotted time, and the fact that it's difficult is a matter of transformative justice which I am advocating for here.

For example, let's say we have a problem in our city with pedestrian deaths, and some hacked off old guy holding a beer walks in yelling that there needs to be gaurdrails installed along the sidewalks. Now, the punitive justice, aka bootlicker perspective would be to just be more careful on the sidewalks, and it's their own fault for falling into the road. And, maybe we just need to fine the surviving families of the deceased pedestrians, that will fix the problem. Right... well it's been a great talk. And anyway, I will look into a bug report then

[sparklingwaterr]

There is a setting for slower playing. Timer its a must cause otherwise people that lose can use it as a way to annoy others and to play extremely slow. If u have connection issues, then it’s your personal problem, can’t ask people to change a whole thing for your connection issues. Cause other than connection, there is no issue, there is plenty of time.i always play on fast mode and has zero thinking time issues.

[Lali2]

I completely agree with you.
I think the player who’s actively playing their turn should have the ability to contest a kick-out. The active player should be able to reject the expulsion if they are in the middle of their move — especially when it’s a complex or final turn.

The same thing has happened to me in several games where everyone was taking about the same amount of time, yet someone just wanted to avoid a loss and used the timer system to their advantage. It feels unfair to be punished for that kind of behavior.

I really hope BGA considers implementing something like a “contest expulsion” option or the one-minute grace you mentioned. It would help prevent this type of abuse and make the experience more sportsmanlike for everyone.

[Jellby]

I think the player who’s actively playing their turn should have the ability to contest a kick-out.

They can, by finishing their turn within 20 seconds. If they can't, well, it looks like they lost.

[Jeremy55]

This is really disturbing, I am not a slow player and it has happened to me a few time. BGA seem to be saying it is our fault. I am never getting 44 seconds positive at the start of a turn. The point is then you get in a situation in Knights and Cities where you might be taking a dozen different actions in one turn and you don't get any seconds back or restart the countdown when playing actions. So if the countdown starts and you spend two seconds on each move, you can be expelled. The suggestion I should end my turn early on the offchance there is somebody nasty and unsportsmanlike enough involved just seems wrong and is handing control of the game to cheats and scoundrels.
This just happened to me in a 4 player game where the outcome was still in the balance. So as well as myself two other players who had spent 40 minutes on a game they might still have won were going to be disssapointed. It is just wrong.

It can quite easily be fixed, either by crediting 5 seconds for each action taking, or restarting the countdown clock for each action taken. This would encourage speedy play without leading to cheats ruining games.

[Jellby]

It can quite easily be fixed, either by crediting 5 seconds for each action taking, or restarting the countdown clock for each action taken. This would encourage speedy play without leading to cheats ruining games.

Yes, easily fixed by changing a core feature of BGA that would affect all games, often in undesired ways.

It can be even more easily fixed by playing with slower speed settings if you think you need more time per turn. Currently fast means +43 seconds per turn. If you don't think that's enough, don't join tables with "fast" speed. Normal speed is +68 seconds per turn, and slow speed is +109 seconds per turn. If those fit better what you think a turn should last (note that you also have the time bank, so you can always take longer for some particularly tricky turns), choose those speeds. If you don't get the advertised time per turn, file a bug report.

In any case, don't blame the players who choose to expel when someone runs out of time.

[varietyCH]

Yes, easily fixed by changing a core feature of BGA that would affect all games, often in undesired ways.

Have a look at Can't Stop, there a Player already receives some Bonus seconds for each diceroll. Maybe that would solve the issue of @Jeremy55?