Overall XP declines?

[RazorOz]

Yeah. I remember Razor talking about the issues with heat constantly in forums. On several different occasions I checked the 100 most recent Heat games. And every time there was a quit rate of 20-25%. They fixed that problem and I’m sure Heat players are much happier now than before.

To all the people who say “oh. You can’t continue on with 3+ players because that player can make moves change the outcome” is it better instead to strip someone from a 1st place tournament because another player timed out? Outside of team games, drafting games, (maybe a few other exceptions), most games would be better off continuing than fake results due to who had the most remaining time.

This is the key point, it's not whether something is perfect for every scenario you can imagine of, it's whether it's better than the solution you have now which seems pretty universally disliked.

For example, it's not like hypothetically dropping out at Heat has no effect. Especially if they drop out mid-turn. There's plenty of hypotheticals I could come up with, for example adrenaline can be a key tool in a Heat race, say you are in 5th in a 6 player race (the last 2 players have adrenaline), and then for whatever reason someone 1st-4th drops out, this could hurt you a lot, but here's the thing in practice these are very rarely the scenarios players drop out. What happens is you either get the players who don't turn up at all, or they drop out at the end when they have no prospects of winning.

What I have to think, is I know Heat was almost certainly an extreme case of this, hence why it got the changes it did, but I have to think this pattern, especially in tournaments isn't uncommon. You will get 2 types, one is the player who is just obviously too slow to be playing the tournament to begin with, someone who is in the red on their clock with less than 20% of the game played, who you can just time out and adapt to the situation you're now in, or you get the player who knows they're not going to win/qualify etc. who disappears at the end of the game, which I have to think in a lot of scenarios you can time them out without it even having any real effect on the result, because they've given up anyway.

You're also debating it against what exists now. Because take a game like Wingspan, let's say I have a 4 player tournament, now some people will say well someone dropping is influencing how the game plays if it's now a 3 player table. But the question should be is that fairer than the alternative of having whoever has the most time on their clock advances, and I have to think for the majority of games it is.

[FrankJones]

This may be a silly question, but how would that handle the situation of someone simply refusing to play (or getting sick and not logging on)? I assume letting someone hold a tournament hostage if they decided not to play would be very bad.

You time them out, and the game goes on.

But not all multi-player games can function with an absent player.

[tbhp]

Yeah. I remember Razor talking about the issues with heat constantly in forums. On several different occasions I checked the 100 most recent Heat games. And every time there was a quit rate of 20-25%. They fixed that problem and I’m sure Heat players are much happier now than before.

That's the thing though, if now you run a high risk of having players drop out in your games, I don't consider that fixing the problem, it's just replacing the problem with a new one.

It seems a bit absurd to prevent people from terminating games by creating a culture where it becomes normalized for people to just leave games instead. It's not like that's much better. It's still the same philosophical issue of "the game didn't proceed to conclusion the normal way", just in a different way.

Also, at what point do you think it would start bothering people? I mean, I'm sure everyone would have a threshold where it starts affecting them, it's not just me. In a race of 10 players, people may not care if one person decides to quit. But what if the race goes down to very few players remaining? At this point is there even really a race anymore? And what if everyone quits but you? There would be zero satisfaction winning the game like that.

[tbhp]

What I have to think, is I know Heat was almost certainly an extreme case of this, hence why it got the changes it did, but I have to think this pattern, especially in tournaments isn't uncommon.

Yeah, I think this is very game dependent. In a game like Heat, where like I explained earlier dropping out is already part of the culture anyway, it may not bother people too much and so that would be seen as a working alternative if the previous system frequently had timeouts.

I mean, look at something like Triathlon. I'm sure the Olympic Gold winner doesn't care if a few players drop out during the race. There's like 100 of them. And since it's very frequent for those races to have at least one player abandon, it would be absurd to invalidate the results every time this happens.

Now, take a board game like Harmonies. Here multiplayer is either 3 or 4 players facing each other, in a way that is very much like "cowboy triel", "duel of the gods", "masters of the elements showdown", etc... So for this type of confrontation, your opponents are not just replaceable players who can drop out any time and you wouldn't miss them. Each opponent is a unique and integral part of the game. Imagine the duel at the end of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly but one of them is missing. It's not the same scene anymore, is it?

[Jellby]

There are also many games with different setup and even rules depending on the number of players.

[ChiefPointThief]

There are also many games with different setup and even rules depending on the number of players.

Care to give examples? Obviously I know this is true. Especially on a site with 1400 games. I just want actual examples so I can understand what games people feel fall under this category.

My point is that the majority of games CAN play on. And it not being the “perfect” solution isn’t even the topic. Is it a “better” solution than what we currently have in place? That is stripping someone of a 1st place tournament because another player went over time. Or even some of the weird rules that Frank mentioned. I remember back when there was interaction amongst my friends here on tournaments and a friend lost 3 straight tourneys in which they should’ve won or at least tied. But because of some weird rules they didn’t and wasn’t happy about it.

[ChiefPointThief]

What I have to think, is I know Heat was almost certainly an extreme case of this, hence why it got the changes it did, but I have to think this pattern, especially in tournaments isn't uncommon.

Yeah, I think this is very game dependent. In a game like Heat, where like I explained earlier dropping out is already part of the culture anyway, it may not bother people too much and so that would be seen as a working alternative if the previous system frequently had timeouts.

I mean, look at something like Triathlon. I'm sure the Olympic Gold winner doesn't care if a few players drop out during the race. There's like 100 of them. And since it's very frequent for those races to have at least one player abandon, it would be absurd to invalidate the results every time this happens.

Now, take a board game like Harmonies. Here multiplayer is either 3 or 4 players facing each other, in a way that is very much like "cowboy triel", "duel of the gods", "masters of the elements showdown", etc... So for this type of confrontation, your opponents are not just replaceable players who can drop out any time and you wouldn't miss them. Each opponent is a unique and integral part of the game. Imagine the duel at the end of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly but one of them is missing. It's not the same scene anymore, is it?

Now this is where we disagree (harmonies). This sort of falls under the draft category that I mentioned but not quite because the available piles remain in the middle and it isn’t like each player must take a pile and then there’s a new round. It’s just one turn/pile at a time.

The counter argument is that “well if the expelled player is seeking a specific resource and they are no longer present then now there is more of that resource for the rest. Therefore ruining the game”. But under bga bylaws a player cannot be forced to play in a particular way. And also you don’t know if that player would even take water (I’ll use this resource). They may be a player that opts for a different strategy.

If I’m not mistaken every thing stays the same with higher player counts in harmonies right? So whether it’s 2p or 4p there are still 4 piles of available resources. There are still 4 scoring cards to choose from. There are still 10 rds. Correct?

So my proposed solution is still better for harmony than what we have in place. Just play on now as if it is a 3p game. The timed out player comes in 4th. The game is still VERY playable without this person taking turns.

[RazorOz]

But not all multi-player games can function with an absent player.

And thus it wouldn't apply to those games.

That's the thing though, if now you run a high risk of having players drop out in your games, I don't consider that fixing the problem, it's just replacing the problem with a new one.

It seems a bit absurd to prevent people from terminating games by creating a culture where it becomes normalized for people to just leave games instead. It's not like that's much better. It's still the same philosophical issue of "the game didn't proceed to conclusion the normal way", just in a different way.

Also, at what point do you think it would start bothering people? I mean, I'm sure everyone would have a threshold where it starts affecting them, it's not just me. In a race of 10 players, people may not care if one person decides to quit. But what if the race goes down to very few players remaining? At this point is there even really a race anymore? And what if everyone quits but you? There would be zero satisfaction winning the game like that.

You've said this multiple times. Except the evidence points the other way. There are less drop outs now than there used to be in Heat. Tournament example - https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=571646. Look how relatively few time outs there are. In 117 tables there's about 5 time outs in the whole thing.

One of the main reasons for this is it disincentivises strategic time outs. I would imagine this is fairly common at many games, where someone waits until the end, sees they're not going to win, and then times someone out, at worst they've now saved their ELO by voiding the result, at best in a tournament setting if they're sitting with the most or one of the most time on the clock, they've now engineered it so they go through. That's the sort of time out that heavily annoys people in tournaments, and this method completely eliminates them.

[RazorOz]

There are also many games with different setup and even rules depending on the number of players.

A different setup/rules doesn't necessarily make a game unplayable though by changing the player count. Whether a game is actually unplayable depends on the gameplay. I mean Heat technically has differing rules for certain player counts, and I think of a game like Lost Ruins of Arnak, this has different setup of the board depending on the players, yet I would still far rather play on as a 3 play game on a 4 player board if someone leaves the game, than have it void the result, because gameplay wise it's fair, there's no major changes, you're just playing 3 player on a more open board. If the gameplay is as such that the game doesn't function, then yes obviously it shouldn't have this rule, but I actually imagine those games are few and far between.

Another example for one that most people will know, is take Ticket to Ride, the rules change on Europe/USA going between 3-4 player, but again it'd be far more desirable in a tournament to have your 4 player game that become a 3 player game actually finish, than have the result voided. There's way more integrity to the result that way.

You also have to bear in mind where most these time outs will happen. In a tournament generally most time outs will happen in Round 1, because all the slow players have already been weeded out the field by Round 2.

[Jellby]

Care to give examples? Obviously I know this is true. Especially on a site with 1400 games. I just want actual examples so I can understand what games people feel fall under this category.

Ticket to ride has been mentioned, whith different routes being available depending on whether you play with 2 players or more.

In Saboteur or Bang the roles of the players are distributed depending on the initial number of players.

I lost track of all the games that say "use this side of the board for 2-3 players, use the other side for 4-5", or "for a 2 player game, removed the cards marked 3+". And I'm pretty sure I've seen some game(s) that are played 2 vs. 2 in 4-player mode and all vs. all in 3 player mode.

The victory conditions often change with the number of players too. Should they change when the number of players is modified mid-game?

A different setup/rules doesn't necessarily make a game unplayable though by changing the player count.

Definitely not, but possibly imbalanced and not much fun.

Whether it's better to continue in such "broken" state or to call it quits and proceed with some random/arbitrary choice, is probably a matter of personal taste, and something that mostly affects only tournaments. The current state is that in general games cannot continue when a player is removed, but as proved by Heat, a game developer can implement the option to do so. It seems to me then that if you think a particular game could continue after a player leaves, you should file a suggestion for that particular game.