BGA has a serious bully problem

[Andrei3009]

My impression of the bga community is exactly the opposite - people are always ready to help, especially if you are a beginner. I was often given hints in my first games and didn't complain about the long moves. In general, complaining about my thinking time is the only negative thing I encounter on a more or less permanent basis.

BUT I never play fully cooperative games. This is just my opinion, but they are created only for playing with friends where you gradually learn, come up with new strategies and eventually win. On bga, you play with new people every time, and the chance of connecting is very small.

[nik592]

I like Hanabi IRL - we've owned it for quite some time, and enjoyed playing it (although, it's been a while, we've been distracted by lots of newer games since). I've played it on here at least once, maybe twice, and the game I can clearly remember included a higher-level player who was obviously expecting conventions, and three newbies who obviously weren't. The player expecting conventions made some reasonably rude remarks (not as bad as some, and not downright abusive, but certainly condescending), and then proposed an abandon or maybe quit. I did some research about these conventions they mentioned, and came to conclusion that Hanabi on BGA wasn't somewhere I would be welcome, as I had no intentions of learning the conventions, I just wanted to play how we always had IRL. That made me a bit sad, but fortunately there are plenty of other games to play so I moved on. That said, I think it is a shame that there are any players who want to play with conventions and/or higher level players, yet don't seem to understand how to use filtering and game options (our game had no conventions set) to find the correct people and then get cranky at the beginners who innocently join their tables.

I also tend to avoid other co-op games on here, unless I'm playing with my IRL friends. I don't feel like that's a deliberate decision, I didn't even realise I was doing it until just now, but it's probably related to my experience with Hanabi.

[FrankJones]

Exactly -

I thought the challenge of Hanabi was, well, the obvious challenge of communicating information in a way that does not confuse the teammates. We found it to be a challenging game. We never scored the full 25.

I later learned of these specific conventions that apparently enable players to win every time. That doesn't sound much fun or challenge, but hey, to all their own, right?

Perhaps it's similar to Bridge conventions, but those are far from making it a solved game. It's still one of the most complex card games out there.)

But, as you noted, why would an expert expecting these conventions play with three beginners? Use filters (or start a Hanabi group), or something, to ensure that all players in the game know and use the conventions (if desired).

[Exotic Dreams]

Sorry you're having this experience. While I have noticed the normal internet rudeness and mean people on B GA, I'd say my experience has been overall positive.
It does seem like it might be specific to a game or games you're playing. I hope it gets better for you.

[Exotic Dreams]

My impression of the bga community is exactly the opposite - people are always ready to help, especially if you are a beginner. I was often given hints in my first games and didn't complain about the long moves. In general, complaining about my thinking time is the only negative thing I encounter on a more or less permanent basis.

BUT I never play fully cooperative games. This is just my opinion, but they are created only for playing with friends where you gradually learn, come up with new strategies and eventually win. On bga, you play with new people every time, and the chance of connecting is very small.

Lucky you. There are players on here that will block newbies/ beginners. I was blocked a few times learning to play burgle bros and I wa s blocked first time I tried to play heat.

[FrankJones]

My impression of the bga community is exactly the opposite - people are always ready to help, especially if you are a beginner. I was often given hints in my first games and didn't complain about the long moves. In general, complaining about my thinking time is the only negative thing I encounter on a more or less permanent basis.

BUT I never play fully cooperative games. This is just my opinion, but they are created only for playing with friends where you gradually learn, come up with new strategies and eventually win. On bga, you play with new people every time, and the chance of connecting is very small.

Lucky you. There are players on here that will block newbies/ beginners. I was blocked a few times learning to play burgle bros and I tried a game called heat and I was blocked in my first game for playing badly.

Not defending their actions - but perhaps your approach wasn't optimal? (Again, not criticizing you, just trying to see it from multiple angles.)

So, if I'm new at a game, I don't just join a game and expect the advanced players to be patient and explain things to me while I'm possibly costing them a win or otherwise messing up the game.

I'll do one of the following:

1) post in the forum for that game, "Hey, I'm new to this game, is anyone interested in some friendly mode play for me to learn the basics of the game clear?"
2) Check the leaderboard and see if I can chat with a high-rated player and maybe find a mentor (This is fairly similar to number 1)
3) On the flip side, if I'm advanced in a game and I see a newbie creating an open table, rated game, no restrictions, I'll offer to play that person friendly mode and offer to give advice when asked, rathe than having that player be crushed by an advanced player looking for a cheap win.

Overall, this has worked well. I have learned from others, and others have learned from me.

[MarkSteere]

I played Hearts a few times. I was studying the Hearts program tutorial in preparation for programming a card game, and I wanted to see how the play matched up to the program. I was subjected to snide remarks once they realized I didn't know what I was doing. Maybe they thought I had a clever new strategy at first. But apparently I held onto the wrong cards for too long, or some such. I lost and someone else won, but that wasn't good enough. They didn't get to win the RIGHT way. Or maybe the wrong person won because of me. I don't know. Some kind of epic tragedy.

I think there must be something wrong with the game if a bad player can't just lose, and the remaining players fight for the spoils. If a game depends on everyone playing "correctly," that seems like a design problem to me. Fortunately I don't have to contend with that kind of nonsense in the two player abstracts I play. Worst case, the experience can be less than ideal if someone is playing horribly, but they just lose and either drop out after that or start to improve. I never felt inclined to criticize anyone for playing badly. I will offer pointers if requested of me. One guy wanted me to instruct him on good moves at the beginning of each of his turns in Oust. That seemed kind of pointless and like too much effort on my part. He became enraged when I refused to do it.

[Exotic Dreams]

My impression of the bga community is exactly the opposite - people are always ready to help, especially if you are a beginner. I was often given hints in my first games and didn't complain about the long moves. In general, complaining about my thinking time is the only negative thing I encounter on a more or less permanent basis.

BUT I never play fully cooperative games. This is just my opinion, but they are created only for playing with friends where you gradually learn, come up with new strategies and eventually win. On bga, you play with new people every time, and the chance of connecting is very small.

Lucky you. There are players on here that will block newbies/ beginners. I was blocked a few times learning to play burgle bros and I tried a game called heat and I was blocked in my first game for playing badly.

Not defending their actions - but perhaps your approach wasn't optimal? (Again, not criticizing you, just trying to see it from multiple angles.)

So, if I'm new at a game, I don't just join a game and expect the advanced players to be patient and explain things to me while I'm possibly costing them a win or otherwise messing up the game.

I'll do one of the following:

1) post in the forum for that game, "Hey, I'm new to this game, is anyone interested in some friendly mode play for me to learn the basics of the game clear?"
2) Check the leaderboard and see if I can chat with a high-rated player and maybe find a mentor (This is fairly similar to number 1)
3) On the flip side, if I'm advanced in a game and I see a newbie creating an open table, rated game, no restrictions, I'll offer to play that person friendly mode and offer to give advice when asked, rathe than having that player be crushed by an advanced player looking for a cheap win.

Overall, this has worked well. I have learned from others, and others have learned from me.

I don't really understand not wanting to play with newbies and then blocking them.
My suggestion is that players who don't want to play with newbies setup their preferences before starting a game.

[RicardoRix]

I played Hearts a few times.

So if you play a game of football, and every 5 minutes wherever you are you just randomly pick up the ball with your hands. Because you can do that, you have hands and there is a football. And sometimes you see other players pick up the ball (throw-in / goal keeper).
So then if other people tell you to NOT do that, you are saying they are wrong and also the game of football is completely stupid because it should on some level be able to tolerate to be played with someone who likes to pick up the ball with their hands.

So that's why people like to think the game should be played by competent players and why they like the game more if that is the case. Also if you have Ronaldo and a 5 year school kid playing together it's also not going to be much of an enjoyable match.

So to sum it up, it's not the game that's at fault. Other games don't have to boil down to what Abstract games are like, just to suit you. Thankfully.

Play with people your own level, you'll all get so much more out of it.

Hanabi is about learning the conventions (through practical play), not just playing them. It's an absolute 1-of-a-kind awesome experience, but yes you absolutely have to find the right players to play with.

[MarkSteere]

If you have Ronaldo and a 5 year school kid playing together... [drama snip]

If you want to preclude mismatched players, you can restrict table access by level. It's really that simple.