Suggestion: Allow Conceding Between 10% and 90% of a Game

[Epic Goose]

Edit: After considering the points raised by other players in the discussion, I’ve reconsidered my initial suggestion. I now think allowing concessions between 50% and 95% completion would be a more reasonable compromise. This would help prevent early-game abuse while still allowing players to concede before the very end of a game. I’m keeping the original post below for context, but please note that my suggested percentages have changed.
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I think the option to concede should become available once a game reaches 10% completion and be disabled after 90%. I’m curious whether others agree.

Why allow conceding before 50%?

If you’re already certain you’re going to lose, you should have the option to concede rather than waste your own time or your opponent’s. Similarly, if something unexpected happens and you need to leave, you should be able to accept the loss without having to negotiate with the other player about abandoning the game.

Why disable conceding after 90%?

By that point, the game is almost finished. If you’ve played that far, why not let it reach its proper conclusion? Conceding during the final actions—or even during scoring—most certainly is not about saving time. It is only about ending the game out of frustration over losing.

What particularly frustrates me is when someone deliberately runs down the timer on every turn because they’re losing, only to concede at the very end. That doesn’t feel like an attempt to save time. It feels like they’re taking their frustration out on their opponent.

To me, part of the appeal of board games is that you start a game, enjoy playing it, and finish it properly. That’s how I grew up playing: no saving, no loading—just seeing the game through. Losing is part of it, and it helps the new generation learn to deal with emotions, become more patient, accept the outcome, and understand that losing is not a big deal. I have seen many instances of players conceding and cursing because they are losing at the end.

I’m not saying the concession option should be removed entirely. I think it should have reasonable limits. Allowing it between 10% and 90% would give players a way to leave early while protecting the experience of actually finishing a game.

As it stands, I feel the system makes it too easy for someone to end a game out of frustration. A restriction on very late concessions could help reduce that friction.

[lefalaf]

There is at least one long thread regarding this already in the forums. And probably many.

I agree that it is rude to rage quit late in the game. But it is also rude to do it early in the game just because things aren't going your way. Maybe your opponent(s) want to play it out for the fun of the game, or they see that you still have a chance - maybe their hidden info shows they are in a bad position too, or whatever. Or maybe they would be open to restarting. Just talk to them. Translation tools make this easy today.

You both/all committed to finishing when you started. Any deviation (concede or abandon if < 50%) from this should be the result of getting agreement from your opponent(s) to do so. Talk to people. Respect their wishes if you are the one wanting to deviate from the agreement of finishing the game.

[FSKFSK]

The reason they don't allow conceding before 50% is that people were abusing it. You can multi-account, play yourself and concede right away.

I don't see any reason to forbid conceding after 90% in a 2 player game. There are some games like Quoridor, where it can be 10 or more moves between when it's obvious who's winning and the end of the game. I'm not sure how Quoridor tracks completion percentage.

Personally, I play it out unless the winner is stalling.

[Epic Goose]

I understand your point, and I agree that allowing concessions as early as 10% might be too permissive, especially considering the potential for people to abuse the system. Your point about multi-accounting is a good one, and I think setting the minimum at 40–50% would be a reasonable compromise. The situations where someone genuinely needs to leave unexpectedly are probably not frequent enough to justify allowing concessions from the very beginning of a game.

Regarding the other end of the game, I also understand the argument that 90% completion might be too early to disable concessions in some games, especially when there are still several meaningful moves left. However, I think raising the limit to 95% would be a reasonable compromise. After that point, players should have to finish the game rather than concede at the last moment. This would still give people plenty of opportunities to concede while helping prevent frustrating experiences near the end.

Of course, some players are respectful and understand that a game is a shared experience, and that both players deserve consideration. But unfortunately, not everyone approaches it that way.

Also, the fact that this topic has generated so much discussion on the website suggests that it is not simply an isolated problem caused by a few bad players. Many people seem to have experienced this frustration, so I don't think we should dismiss it as something that doesn't really matter.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution at the moment, but I believe there is room for a better compromise. Allowing concessions between 40–50% and 95% would address the concerns about early-game abuse while also discouraging people from ending games out of frustration when they are almost over.

I think the important thing is to acknowledge that this is a real issue for many players and look for a reasonable balance that respects everyone's time and enjoyment of the game.

[Jellby]

Have you found a reliable and meaningful way of measuring progression withing a 5% accuracy for all 1700+ games?

Me, I have found games that are stuck at 0% until the end, games that start already at 50%, games that jump from 0% to 25% to 50% to 75% after each round finishes, games that end in one move after they are at 72%, etc.

[Epic Goose]

Have you found a reliable and meaningful way of measuring progression withing a 5% accuracy for all 1700+ games?

Me, I have found games that are stuck at 0% until the end, games that start already at 50%, games that jump from 0% to 25% to 50% to 75% after each round finishes, games that end in one move after they are at 72%, etc.

Obviously, this option is not really necessary for small or short games, as you yourself have pointed out. In shorter games, a single action might represent more than 5% of the total progress, and that's perfectly fine. Since these games don't take much time, someone conceding near the end isn't a significant issue.

However, the situation is different for longer games, which are my main concern. In these games, the final 5% can involve some actions and sometimes take a small amount of time. I've seen situations where a game reaches 99%, or even effectively 100%, and someone still decides to concede instead of finishing it properly.

this suggestion is primarily intended to address that problem in longer games, not necessarily every single one of the 1,700+ games.

In my opinion, it makes sense to consider a solution, especially since several people in this forum seem to have experienced the same frustration and would like something to be done about it.

[Jellby]

Obviously, this option is not really necessary for small or short games, as you yourself have pointed out.

That's not what I meant. I mean that the progression is not always easy to evaluate or correctly programmed. What do you do with a game where you have a winning move (so it should be something like 99%) but you fail to see it, or you decide not to take it, and as a result the game has a few (or many) more turns to end (so it should be something like 70%)? I don't think the progression can go back, and it should definitely not give you a hint that there is a winning move.

Take a tennis match, best of 5 sets. You win 6-4, 6-4, 5-4 (40-30). Match point. The match is 99.9% finished. Somehow you fail, lose the game, the set, and there are possibly 2 more sets to play, so it was actually 60% (or 10-20% if you are Mahut against Isner )

And there are many other ways in which the reported progression is just not reliable, not because it's a short game.

[groverapid5079]

The 90 percent cutoff makes sense, since conceding during the final scoring mostly serves to deny the opponent a proper finish. The early window is harder, because, as lefalaf says, the other player may want to play a weak position out. One middle ground would be to make an early concession count as a normal loss for rating while freeing the conceding player from any abandonment penalty. That keeps the incentive to finish games without forcing anyone to negotiate an exit in chat when real life interrupts.