Tournament time limits

[Rosie Napper]

Just posted this in the TM forum and then realised there's one dedicated to tournaments... Also apologies if there are already threads about this but....

Just taking place in my first tournament and had a nasty surprise re the time limit.

First off, I didn't realise until it became an issue that the timer in a tournament is different to normal play in that it is just a ticking clock (ie. doesn't reset each turn) but that's my bad (although still think BGA could make this more obvious).

My real issue with this is that you are playing people from different parts of the world. As such, in a 24 hour (no playing hours) game, if you're the one who is out of synch with others, you're naturally going to lose all your thinking time by sleeping at night.

Then, if the game doesn't finish in time (which could also be down to another player) the person with the most thinking time remaining gets the win.

This policy seems to discriminate against a player for being in the wrong time zone.

Happy to be put right here but wanted to flag this and see if other people had the same experience.

[Mathew5000]

The topic has been frequently discussed on this forum, for example here:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42591

[Rosie Napper]

I may be missing something here but this feature also seems to be broken.

In the latest game I'm drawn in a tournament, started yesterday and each player was showing 3 days remaining thinking time.

I had my last turn at around 8:30pm and then the next player at 10:30pm. The third player then took their turn at 7:58am yet my clock now says 2 days remaining while both other payers still show 3?!

[Meeplelowda]

I may be missing something here but this feature also seems to be broken.

In the latest game I'm drawn in a tournament, started yesterday and each player was showing 3 days remaining thinking time.

I had my last turn at around 8:30pm and then the next player at 10:30pm. The third player then took their turn at 7:58am yet my clock now says 2 days remaining while both other payers still show 3?!

It's not broken. It just doesn't have the granularity you want.

2 days 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds will show as "2 days." 3 days 0 hours 0 minutes and 1 second will show as "3 days" even though it's only 2 seconds more time than the first example.

Not until you get under 2 days will it show the time remaining in terms of hours and minutes.

[Rosie Napper]

This is useful information - thanks.

So, this particular game highlights why the time system is skewed;

Looking back through the game log, I can see that the discrepancy is due to me being player 1 gen 1 and the game launching at 8:30pm on a Saturday.

As the games in previous rounds had started at 6:30pm, I checked several times but next round hadn't started.

I did not log into BGA until Sunday morning and so have ended up 'losing' over 12 hours.

[koningco]

First advice is to check the time limit and tournament settings. There is a user who creates Race Against Time tournaments, giving users 3 hours time limit even for games that require a lot of player actions like Flip 7 and Wizard. In my opinion those tournaments have nothing to do with playing board games. It also goes wrong often in the game Heat, where users create a tournament with a championship (which is visible in the tournament settings) meaning the time given is for 4 races in stead of just a single race. After playing tournaments for some time you will find out which time limits for each game you play are realistic for you. In general tournament creators underestimate relatively simple games that do require a lot of short turns per player. For example Flip 7, this game may require 25 or even 30 actions before a user reaches the limit to end the game. An action is just "take another card" or "pass" but with players in different time zones this requires time for normal gameplay without too many kick-outs or players who reach the next round because the were the fastest player in stead of the best player.

I have been thinking about writing a guideline for tournament creators, BGA could possibly link to this guideline on the page where users create tournaments. But maybe I am not the right person to write this guideline because I don't create tournaments myself and I "only" play about 30 different games.

[Meeplelowda]

I have been thinking about writing a guideline for tournament creators

I think BananaHarambe already wrote a pretty decent one.

What would also be good is if the tournaments framework were tweaked to prevent settings that frequently cause tournaments to fail from being chosen in the first place.

[BananaHarambe]

I have been thinking about writing a guideline for tournament creators

I think BananaHarambe already wrote a pretty decent one.

What would also be good is if the tournaments framework were tweaked to prevent settings that frequently cause tournaments to fail from being chosen in the first place.

I have all the knowledge on the forums scattered all over, the forums and have meant to make a general post, but haven’t yet. A TLDR from a lot of experience, over 60 tournaments hosted:

1) Tournaments function better as 2p in nearly every way: competition, time management, tournament flow, tournament formats (within BGA limits). Tournaments for 3p or higher should be considered more casual and more often subject to the many issues people complain about BGA Tournaments.

2) Players generally do not pay much attention to tournament settings and are very poor at determining if their pace of play is suitable for specific tournaments.

3) With #2 in mind it is recommended to be pragmatic with your tournament settings by making majority agreeable time settings and tournament styles for players rather than be idealistic and expect only players that can meet your requirements join. If your 3p tournament has 10 days time instead of 15 days because you want to move along faster, players will not play 50% faster. You would be lucky if they played 1-2% faster.

4) Understand the number of “turns” for each player that are required to complete a typical game of whatever game you are hosting. I recommend no less than 4 hours per turn for 2p and 6p per turn for 3p+ games.

5) With #4 in mind, some games are much more suitable for tournaments than others. An example of an easy game is Faraway because it requires 10-16 turns to complete the game, a very narrow range and some turns have simultaneous choices/turns. A game that is elimination based with a highly variable turn number or well exceeding 40 turns may be much less suitable for tournaments, especially 3+p where it is hard to get a good game flow going.

[koningco]

All good points BananaHarambe, except that I would not recommand users to mainly create 2-player games in tournaments. I do like tournaments with more than 2 players at a table, because they are more like real life play. Many games have different strategy when you play with 2 players in stead of more players. But it's a personal preference and I also understand it when users prefer faster flow in the game and play with 2 players (a shorter time limit can still be an issue then when you play at different times). And the more tournaments to choose from as participant, the better! And Iagree with you that people should be more careful when they set up tournaments with more players at one table.

Are the post above the guidelines Meeplelowda was refferring to, or did you write a more extensive guide somewhere else? I was thinking about something the BGA could link on the tournament creation page to to prevent tournaments being created with bad time limits.

[RazorOz]

For Terraforming Mars I would just avoid tournaments that aren't 30 day rounds, particularly multi-player tournaments, it seems way over ambitious to me to run a Terraforming Mars 4 player tournament with a 15 day clock.

Creators are often over ambitious with tournament clocks, particularly when it comes to multi-player tournaments. For the majority of games, if the settings are for 4+ players I would not join anything that doesn't have 30 day rounds, it's just too ambitious, there will be too many time zone clashes, and it will all end in tears.

It also goes wrong often in the game Heat, where users create a tournament with a championship (which is visible in the tournament settings) meaning the time given is for 4 races in stead of just a single race.

I have been thinking about writing a guideline for tournament creators, BGA could possibly link to this guideline on the page where users create tournaments. But maybe I am not the right person to write this guideline because I don't create tournaments myself and I "only" play about 30 different games.

The problem with specifically Heat Championships is it's not just viable to create tournaments that work without very specific limitations. Because creators cannot set tournament rounds to longer than 30 days, but each individual round can be 4 races like you say. On top of that Heat is mostly a game getting played at high player count of 5+. The only way you're going to complete a Championship round within 30 days with 5+ players is if all players are ultra fast/in the same time zone, so it's completely unrealistic to think it will work in a tournament setting.

I would just avoid all multi-player Championship tournaments, players keep setting them up, but they never work, they always end in tears with most the games not completing on time, so they are just a complete waste of time. The only time Championship really works in a tournament setting is if it's 2 player it can work, or there was a tournament where someone hand picked 24 players for one, and even then the rounds were often running 27-28 days, which shows you exactly why it's completely unviable to run a multi-player Championship tournament in reality.

I actually thought about doing what you say specifically for Heat in the Heat forum, because there's multiple issues, which particularly inexperienced creators struggle with. I'm actually sure the same issues are true for a lot of games, but you need someone who knows those games to understand the ins and outs. Time and over ambitious clocks is the obvious one, but Heat has the issue that the settings I'm pretty sure confuse players. You will get multiple options of "Circuit", "Garage Module", you have a game mode in the middle which relates to whether it's Championship or not, but the multiple "Championship" options are displayed at the bottom regardless. I often see tournaments where I'm not sure if the creator actually knows what they've created.

Look at this for a sample https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=378841 and you will see what I mean, now I know mostly through experience the circuit options are because the 1st one only relates to if playing base game only, the second one is what matters if you have Heavy Rain expansion active. The garage module settings, the 1st one relates to if playing normal mode, the 2nd one relates to if playing Championship. The Championship settings are only relevant if the Mode in the middle is set to Championship, and then you have the various Legend settings (which are completely irrelevant in that tournament as the games are set to minimum 5 players, and Legends is set to fill to 5 cars). I know this through experience, but you can see why this is a problem for new creators, and I assume other games have similar issues. It's also not the developer's fault, because it would be best if only the options that were relevant to the tournament were displayed, it'd make it far less confusing, but apparently there's nothing the developers can do about it.