Problem with Civilized Society

[EuroGamez]

So this just happaened:

Last orund of scoirng and i go up to 11 points to win. The person after me decided to time out so that another player will kick them. Denying me a win with the gae at 100% completion.

Losing a bit of karma and neutralizing the scores of a 3 hour already finished game needs to have other consequences or the scoring needs to work differently. It's not worth investing time into a game where this happend all the time. I playing leaving should not neutralize the scores for this game.

If you toop at the top ranked player for TI4 they have only actually won like 4 games, the other 7 have been neutralized. There is a problem with quitting in TI4... I am not gonna play any more unfortunately.

[GTSchemer]

As I understand, in general all rated games on BGA award partial elo depending on how close the game is to the end. So if a game is 100% done, players are awarded 100% of the elo, as shown on the end screen: https://snipboard.io/1sQXax.jpg

However, I agree it is frustrating. That is the nature of long games on BGA, and TI4 is one of the longest of them all. The only advice I am aware of is to give players who quit a personal red thumb (click the red thumb, then choose "Just for me"). This avoids playing against them in the future.

Sometimes there is discussion about it in forum, I am not aware of any general BGA plans to change the karma system.

[EuroGamez]

Yes, but all players will split the ELO, so if i am first i would have gotten maybe +ELO for every oponent in the game. But now i am drawing the game against all players who didn't ragequit. The system works in a 2 player game, but not in a game where there are ofter 6 players.

I think the only and best way to fix it for this game is not not neutralize results because of one player quitting. You just have to play it out, playrs could of course quit wihtout a penatly, but their positions would be accordingly. I.e. 2nd to quit gets second last, 3rd to quit 3rd last. And last player standing wins. This would make it so 1 player can't hold all other players hostage.

[GTSchemer]

Yes, but all players will split the ELO, so if i am first i would have gotten maybe +ELO for every oponent in the game. But now i am drawing the game against all players who didn't ragequit. The system works in a 2 player game, but not in a game where there are ofter 6 players.

I think the only and best way to fix it for this game is not not neutralize results because of one player quitting. You just have to play it out, playrs could of course quit wihtout a penatly, but their positions would be accordingly. I.e. 2nd to quit gets second last, 3rd to quit 3rd last. And last player standing wins. This would make it so 1 player can't hold all other players hostage.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I think all multiplayer games on BGA use the same system of all other players being treated as shared winners.

If so, it is not something individual module developers can change. The website in general would have to support a new system like that.

[Dywnarc]

Yes, but all players will split the ELO, so if i am first i would have gotten maybe +ELO for every oponent in the game. But now i am drawing the game against all players who didn't ragequit. The system works in a 2 player game, but not in a game where there are ofter 6 players.

I think the only and best way to fix it for this game is not not neutralize results because of one player quitting. You just have to play it out, playrs could of course quit wihtout a penatly, but their positions would be accordingly. I.e. 2nd to quit gets second last, 3rd to quit 3rd last. And last player standing wins. This would make it so 1 player can't hold all other players hostage.

I agree - I would like it to play that way.

[EuroGamez]

Yes, but all players will split the ELO, so if i am first i would have gotten maybe +ELO for every oponent in the game. But now i am drawing the game against all players who didn't ragequit. The system works in a 2 player game, but not in a game where there are ofter 6 players.

I think the only and best way to fix it for this game is not not neutralize results because of one player quitting. You just have to play it out, playrs could of course quit wihtout a penatly, but their positions would be accordingly. I.e. 2nd to quit gets second last, 3rd to quit 3rd last. And last player standing wins. This would make it so 1 player can't hold all other players hostage.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I think all multiplayer games on BGA use the same system of all other players being treated as shared winners.

If so, it is not something individual module developers can change. The website in general would have to support a new system like that.

I understand.

Would it be possible to let people just pass every action for the rest of the game though? This would surely avoid so many rage quits. Yes those people would not get "punished" with karma and ELO penalty for leaving the game. But I feel like it is much better than the current situation where it is the winners who are getting punished. As players just make new account and quit again and again...

[GTSchemer]

I understand.

Would it be possible to let people just pass every action for the rest of the game though? This would surely avoid so many rage quits. Yes those people would not get "punished" with karma and ELO penalty for leaving the game. But I feel like it is much better than the current situation where it is the winners who are getting punished. As players just make new account and quit again and again...

No, because it would essentially be a concede that both the publisher and BGA would have to approve.

And even the publisher were willing to allow someone to essentially concede, it could skew games because it might then become the best strategy to viciously attack someone early until they quit, thinking they are out of the running, which then guarantees they are out and rewards the players attempting to basically bully players as early as possible.

It might also discourage ever trying to catch up later in the game.

[art0nic]

First off GT, thank you so much for your hard work, because of you I’m able to play TI, a game i’ve been wanting to play for almost 6 years. You rock!

I also think it sucks to play a game that can literally take weeks to finish just to be snuffed in the end. But it sounds like this won’t be fixed in a way we would like soon. So i guess when making a table, have it so that only the reputation filter is set to 75+ and the level to at least apprentice?

Or just make friends with people willing to stick it out to the end. I’m more than happy to play w you.

[EuroGamez]

First off GT, thank you so much for your hard work, because of you I’m able to play TI, a game i’ve been wanting to play for almost 6 years. You rock!

I also think it sucks to play a game that can literally take weeks to finish just to be snuffed in the end. But it sounds like this won’t be fixed in a way we would like soon. So i guess when making a table, have it so that only the reputation filter is set to 75+ and the level to at least apprentice?

Or just make friends with people willing to stick it out to the end. I’m more than happy to play w you.

The problem is that there is too few people with even 100+ ELO right now. My suggestion was meant as something temporary to get people actually playing and finishing games, so that you could start telling "nice players" from "rage quitters" when making the room. When there is a decent population of players at all ELO ranges that wouldn't be nessecary of course but right now the top ELo is like 200 and the averge is probably close to zero. Very hard to get a good table going.

Things might very well bediffrent in async, unfortunetly that is not at all my cup of tea as I have no interest in gaes that take more than a day, but great for those that play it. You are techinically allowed by the rules of TI4 to just say, "when it's why turn to pick a strategy card i am gonna roll a die" and my first action(s) is just to use my strategy card then i will pass, abstain from every vote not play action cards etc. This sort of play has been used to deal with players having to leave IRL games in emergencies etc. I just think it is definitely what the game needs right now. But again as a temporary measure and test. Not a final solution.

Often when i see players at tables now I check their previous games and it can often be that they quit 3 out of the 6 tables they played TI4 at... That's crazy that people are putting up playing with them still because there are no alternatives.

[GTSchemer]

The problem is that there is too few people with even 100+ ELO right now. My suggestion was meant as something temporary to get people actually playing and finishing games, so that you could start telling "nice players" from "rage quitters" when making the room. When there is a decent population of players at all ELO ranges that wouldn't be nessecary of course but right now the top ELo is like 200 and the averge is probably close to zero. Very hard to get a good table going.

I think one core issue may be that only playing real-time games of TI4 is really difficult. Even in real life, TI4 is known for being something that only occasionally gets played, because you have to schedule 4-6 adults willing and able to spend most of a day just to play a single game. And when it happens and everyone has fun, it's fantastic!

But on BGA where someone in another timezone may fall asleep late at night, or someone may have to suddenly care for a child, or someone may need to pause for food...it can be very difficult to commit to 3-4 minutes per turn without fail. And if you ever do go over that, even for a few seconds, some players may choose to kick you after 5 hours of game time. That could be VERY discouraging for you to play again.

In real life you can pause a game 1 hour for lunch, but online that is also impossible unless players are willing to switch to the turn-based timer.

I encourage players to always ask "Are you still there?" or "Do you need a minute?", especially because people may temporarily lose connection and not realize they need to refresh the game page because it is actually their turn.


Despite all this, there are still a few dedicated players who are doing real-time games. I just scanned over the last 24 hours of games, and 5 different real-time games were completely finished with no one leaving. All had 4-5 players. So at some point, it may be possible to recognize accounts who are good sports / who do not leave.