No penalties for intentionally stalling in turn-based games in order to avoid losing the game before the end of the seas

[Vad55]

The Arena rules state that in an unfinished turn-based game, the one who spent the most time loses. In my case, a player deliberately stalled, didn't finish the game, and became the * champion. I don't know which player spent the most time, but I checked everyone—no one suffered a karma or game point penalty.

*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.

[Ceaseless]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

[Vad55]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

Have you read the BGA rules? What's the point of your comment? You want me to retell them to you, and you're saying they're imperfect? ​​I can't understand your motivation; perhaps you're trolling?

[Vad55]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

You don't even know that BGA doesn't automatically end turn-based games at the end of a season. And it certainly doesn't determine the winner at the end of an Arena season (based on the principle that whoever has the most points in an unfinished game wins). Please don't write to me, there's nothing to talk about with you—you don't even know basic rules.

[FrankJones]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

You don't even know that BGA doesn't automatically end turn-based games at the end of a season. And it certainly doesn't determine the winner at the end of an Arena season (based on the principle that whoever has the most points in an unfinished game wins). Please don't write to me, there's nothing to talk about with you—you don't even know basic rules.

Ceaseless is not a troll. Ceaseless is one of the most helpful players not this site.

As for Arena games in progress, I forget how they do it. There are two types of games that can run out of time (even if no individual player is out of time) because the game is in progress when the format ends: Tournaments and Arena. In either case, the player who has used the most clock is deemed to have "lost" for purposes of scoring in the arena or tournament.

In at least one of these cases, the game is simply converted to friendly mode and continued, I think.

[Meeplelowda]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

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What happens to ongoing turn-based games when the season ends?
If an Arena table cannot be completed before the end of the season, the player who consumed the most thinking time during the game will lose League Points as if the game ended with that player being considered the absolute loser. All other players will neither lose or win any points, regardless of the current state of the game.

The game will then continue in Friendly ∞ Mode, allowing the participants to continue playing or quit, without incurring penalties.

This rule is in place to prevent dishonest players from stalling a game to avoid losing League Points just before the season concludes, particularly when they anticipate a loss.

To further prevent such scenarios, it is not possible to start new Turn-Based Arena games within 5 days of the season's end.

[Vad55]

What does stalling even mean in turn-based? Especially if the player you're accusing of stalling isn't even the one that took the most time (otherwise they'd lose anyways and make the whole stalling thing pointless.) Not sure why there'd be a karma penalty for anyone if BGA is the one that ended the game due to an Arena shift.

You don't even know that BGA doesn't automatically end turn-based games at the end of a season. And it certainly doesn't determine the winner at the end of an Arena season (based on the principle that whoever has the most points in an unfinished game wins). Please don't write to me, there's nothing to talk about with you—you don't even know basic rules.

Ceaseless is not a troll. Ceaseless is one of the most helpful players not this site.

As for Arena games in progress, I

In at least one of these cases, the game is simply converted to friendly mode and continued, I think.

I know all this. The point is that turn-based games go on for weeks (sometimes even months, I've played in those games!), and for those who stall, the game becomes "friendly." What are the sanctions? Karma doesn't decrease. They say they deduct league points, but it's unclear where to find this. And what does this mean for the player? What happened to their league points last season? In my case, one of the players saw they were about to lose and started stalling, not fearing anything, since there was another player who rarely made moves to begin with. I wrote this to encourage more responsible play and to implement some kind of sanctions. Tougher measures are needed.

[Meeplelowda]

They say they deduct league points, but it's unclear where to find this. And what does this mean for the player? What happened to their league points last season?

I don't think BGA displays the AES points lost by the slowest player anywhere explicitly. The only way to tell would be to check their AES just before and just after the season ends. It would be more transparent if a message were displayed saying something like "player X used the most thinking time and is considered the loser for this game in this Arena season and has lost Y AES. This game is now being converted to friendly mode."

As for why the losing player's AES change is not displayed, I think things like displaying final scores, Elo adjustments, etc. are handled in the gameEnd node of the state machine for a game (an experienced dev can fact check that) or maybe even after that node is done with its cleanup. As such, because a turn-based Arena game converted to friendly at the end of a season hasn't ended, it won't enter that node yet. So anything about processing AES adjustments must be handled somewhere else outside the normal gameEnd cleanup, and apparently wherever they implement the AES penalty isn't coded to display that information. It wouldn't surprise me if that AES penalty module can't even "talk to" the instance of the game that triggered it.

[FrankJones]

The quoted rule says the player who stalled will lose league points as though it were a loss. Thus, I assume those league points (which are the purple tokens, right?) would decrease immediately, and lower the player in the arena standings.

[Meeplelowda]

The quoted rule says the player who stalled will lose league points as though it were a loss. Thus, I assume those league points (which are the purple tokens, right?) would decrease immediately, and lower the player in the arena standings.

They may be deducted immediately on the backend, but not necessarily shown as deducted to all the other players in the game. As I said above, it seems like handling these end-of-season AES deductions is done outside the usual game flow. I went into the history of what I suspect is the game the OP was complaining about, and there's nothing indicating that it was ever an Arena game, so there's nothing showing AES adjustments for the loser. It only shows up as an abandoned friendly game.