Anyone else desperate for faster turn-based games?

[FrankJones]

Bugged time joker?

[GTSchemer]

You have my axe. I do feel there is need for faster "play by mail" game settings, but mostly there is need for major improvement and change of thinking about that mode. 12 hour window most of the times is to wide window. Time window should be selectable by players more detailed. By start hour and end hour, and moves within that time window. That will give people more options, and more games would be exactly like people wants.

On this note, I am actually unsure as a player. I sometimes see tables with playing hours from 13:00 to 1:00 or whatever the actual values are.

Are these using France local time like the event calendar? I am usually afraid to join tables like that in case I get the time zone calculation incorrect. Is there a way to specify my timezone on my BGA profile? I could not find it, if so.

Only BGA staff member can say for sure, good luck with getting answer, and even if you do get that answer, knowing how many not fixed bugs BGA has, it wouldn't be 100% sure that it is correct anyway.

I don't recall when was last time I have joined someone else's table with fast settings, so I only know about one's I create. Those are in my local time, so good assumption would be that when you see hours like mentioned, those are your local hours. And I'm also unsure every time I create or if I would like to join if that is correct.

If there is not a way to specify your time zone, I wonder how they adjust? Use the browser I guess?

[Meeplelowda]

If there is not a way to specify your time zone, I wonder how they adjust? Use the browser I guess?

All times for playing hours, tournaments, etc. are shown in your time as determined by your device clock.

[Cile]

I would be in favour of Time Jokers changing to "Remove me from all my turn based games without penalty". Nobody who joined the table knew you were going to leave for vacation half way through, or else they probably wouldn't have joined. It's absurd that someone could join one of OP's "24 moves /day table" that they were hoping to complete in a day or two, take a couple moves, then use a time joker and pause the game for everyone for 4 days.

I'd also be good with the option "Someone at this table has used a time joker, would you like to leave the game without penalty or continue playing?"

[Jellby]

You have already commented (and probably voted) here: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=67850 Maybe others would also like to.

[Fuchur]

Hi, i'm just wondering : You are able to assume any number of moves in an 12 hour window ? and that every day ?

For me this window is by far to large; i would, on normal days, be able to play any number of moves in shorter windows, e.g. between 20:00 and 23:00 of my local time.
Unfortunately BGA proposes only 12 hour-windows (for fast games) or 24 h (for not so fast games). So subscribing to tables is always a gamble : Will the others make their moves while i'm close to my computer or not. Every now and then the constellation doesn't work out -- the player before me in turn order makes his moves after i went to bed. In this situation the real table speed will be #players turn / day (and my clock be empty in one or two days).

I don't see why even faster table speeds would change anything about the situation you describe : The pace of a game has little to do with the announced speed and a lot with the constellation of players : If they are all able and willing to play during the same period of day the game will progress rapidly -- otherwise someone will be kicked.

I'm just putting feelers out there to see if it's just me who loves BGA but feels a *massive* improvement would be the option for faster turn-based tables. Even 24 turns a day actually in many cases turns out to be 2 turns a day, and the game takes many days to complete. I personally don't like to have multiple games of the same game in play at the same time as it's so difficult to keep track of, but I also don't necessarily want to play real-time games most of the time as it's nice to be able to think freely occasionally and be able to - for example - get up and go to the toilet or do a small task and then return to the game, plus I am fairly limited for consistent windows of time in which I can play real-time. I also find I play too slowly in real-time and invoke the anger of the more impatient players.

I am pretty confident there must be many other players who feel the same, but every so often I get an opponent in a turn-based game who plays pretty quickly and sometimes I can get multiple concurrent games of Ark Nova or TM etc. completed within one day against such opponents if I have a lucky run. However, the frustrating thing is that there's no real way to consistently get matched against those kinds of players, except adding them as friends and inviting them to games, but that would then limit me to not playing Arena or Tournament matches, where the abovementioned problems are frankly completely unavoidable.

I do find myself timing people out quite regularly on these 24-turns-a-day turn-based games. While a part of me feels bad about that, another part of me feels people shouldn't join games where they can't meet the time limits, because in my case I'd rather the game finished that day, or at least within 24 hours or at an absolute maximum around 36 hours, so that I can start a new game and avoid having multiple in play at the same time (granted, if one game of e.g. Ark Nova is almost finished, I might sometimes start a new one as it's then easy to keep track, but I generally avoid having two games open of the same game that are both in the same game phase).

The frustrating part as well is sometimes seeing that other people are in 60 or more async games and clearly not keeping up with the games. I'm currently in a 5-player Wingspan tournament with five days per player, and one player is already minus 3 days on their clock in round 3 of the game, and hasn't played a turn in over 48 hours - this player at one point during the match had more than 60 Wingspan tables in play at the same time, seems a bit excessive?!

Sorry, bit of a rant there, but would be grateful for other's thoughts and whether anyone thinks there is a realistic possibility of an implementation of this. I would play BGA *so much more* if it were implemented.

[RazorOz]

In my experience, at least in multi-player games, in a 24 turns a day game, someone always goes in the red within a day or two of it starting. I suspect a number of players just ignore/don't realise the game speed of the game they're entering, or maybe more likely, don't realise the playing hours, and end up in a game with playing hours not suited to them.

[BarnardsStar]

If there is not a way to specify your time zone, I wonder how they adjust? Use the browser I guess?

All times for playing hours, tournaments, etc. are shown in your time as determined by your device clock.

Protip: This is easily confirmed by changing the timezone setting on your device. (Don't just change the time, though; you have to change the timezone). You may need to quit and restart your browser when you do this, but I have used this myself to confirm that times shown are my local time.

[Jellby]

Note that the forum uses a separate time setting (I believe this link would work for anyone: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/ucp.php?i=173), so don't use the forum to check what timezone the rest of BGA (and in particular the playing hours) is using.

[BarnardsStar]

Excellent point; I should have mentioned that. Thank you, Jellby.