Inappropriate Timer behaviour

[StringsAndVerses]

I just played a game of Puerto Rico with the speed setting to 'fast'.

One opponent frittered his 3 minutes of time away to nothing, then when he finally made his move, his timer was reset back to nearly his original 3 minutes. Then he did it again on another turn, timed out, then when he moved he was back to his 3 minutes.

I don't think this is what should be intended when players agree to play at fast speed. For starters, it should be 2 minutes, not 3. Then when someone finishes their turn, he should have 20 seconds added to his clock, not a near full restoration so he can then fritter away a long time on his next turn.

Furthermore, there are some card games such as Hearts and Love Letter that do not warrant more than 45 seconds in fast mode. Having 2.5 minutes to play one card in a trick is frankly quite ridiculous, it really dulls the game.

It would be advisable to allow players a 4 minute bathroom time joker if these fast modes were shortened as requested.

I am just complaining that some games are really no fun when one player isn't paying attention to the game and is consistently taking 2 or 3 minutes to play a turn that the other players are playing at a speed of 10 or 15 seconds each. There should be an extra-fast mode to prevent this.

Hoping to see a change,

SaV.

27992564

[sprockitz]

To me the start time of 3 minutes for fast seems reasonable to a little too low. The problem is that all these games add way too much time per move back on. For simple games, 10 or 15 seconds seems appropriate. For games with more involved moves 30 seconds or at most 1 minute. There are so many games that add 3 minutes (in fast mode) after every move which is ridiculous.

just some games on my current play list for fast mode:
Gyges: 3:00 + 3:17 per turn
Keyflower: 3:00 + 3:30 per turn
Xiangqi: 3:00 + 2:35 per turn
Troyes: 3:00 + 3:30 per turn
Targi: 3:00 + 1:36 per turn
Oh Hell: 3:00 + 0:32 per turn
Palaces of Carrara: 3:00 + 5:00 per turn

Every single one is way too high. Fortunately most people don't use it, but when someone actually uses this time it can make a game take forever. None of these games have complex multi-part moves so they should all be at most 30 seconds. Keyflower in the final turn can take awhile to distribute all your pieces, but other individual turns should be short...this is actually why it is better to have a little longer initial time (or max time cap) and a much shorter increment. For fast I could see starting at 3 minutes, but allow you to build a reserve up to 5 or 6 minutes and cut the time added per move by a factor of 3-10 for all of these games.

[Liallan]

I don't think this is what should be intended when players agree to play at fast speed. For starters, it should be 2 minutes, not 3. Then when someone finishes their turn, he should have 20 seconds added to his clock, not a near full restoration so he can then fritter away a long time on his next turn.

According to a game I just looked at, there's a 3 minute start time and a 5 minute per turn time. Meaning all players should been given 5 minutes back for each new turn, not 3, and not just the one slow player. You may not be noticing that everyone else is getting this time back if they are faster on their turns, but that is the way it should work.

Unless you are saying this player is using up 8 minutes, and get 8 minutes back. If s/he uses up 8, then s/he should be getting 5 minutes of turn time back. If the game is giving all 8 minutes back, that's a bug.

I'm not saying whether the 5 minutes is appropriate for the game or not, just that it's the behavior you should be seeing, so what you're saying doesn't sound right.

Now, if your real complaint is that 5 minutes is too much for a turn on this game (which for a "fast" game does seem like a lot, though I don't know this game), that to me is an entirely different matter, and should be more of a general complaint about the game times in general, rather than about one specific slow player. You're making it sound like it's a bug or something and giving the slow player more time than allowed. (And that player is allowed that time.)

So what you seem to really mean is the game simply has too long a time allowance, because anyone is allowed to use that kind of time. If that's what you mean, say so. By saying the player is getting a "full restoration" back it sounds like the player is getting all the start time back. Of course the player gets the turn time added on every time - that's not the same as fully restoring that initial 3 minutes.

[StringsAndVerses]

You can see on the post before you a list showing that some games give more time back per turn than the initial allotment. To a maximum of initial allotment. This is what I mean by full restauration.

I understand that a player needs a bathroom break during a game, I don't begrudge that. My point is that some players take two to three minutes turn after turn after turn where all other players are playing their turns at 10 or 15 seconds each; and my complaint is that BGA shouldn't be accommodating this behaviour.

My solution is, give an extra minute initial allotment, then only approximately 30 seconds per turn in fast mode, depending on the game. If that is too fast for someone, then they can play normal or slow mode.

[veme]

More timer settings with more user control in general would be welcome. I think the time increments added now are actually somehow mathematically determined from real play, but I am not sure of the method.

I am a player who likes to think a little longer than most, so I am usually the slow one. For instance, that Targi timer that seems too long to sprockitz seems just fine to me (although I would not call it 'Fast'...). I find it quite annoying to start a game (often on Fast mode) and then be harangued to hurry up all the time when I have not used up my timer.

There should be at least one faster setting, and it would be nice if you could choose between systems. Keep the current 'add some time back after every turn' and add options where you get X minutes for all your moves for the whole game, or where you go over based on differential (if I have used X minutes more time than my opponent, I am over time). The addition of the suggested single 'bathroom break' time joker for real time games would make this very feasible, I think.

[schnuff]

From all the good suggestions in this post I'd like to point out the one with the "bathroom break" (some might call it the "boss comes in"- function )

I think the time jokers for vacation are great; why not implement a similar thing worth some minutes to real time games? There could even be a checkbox when creating the game for the impatient to deactivate the gimmick.

[BoardGamesAreMyThing]

People are way to slow in moving. I agree that on fast games, the time limit should be like one minute, no more. People that repeatedly take to much time, every turn, should be kicked from the game.

[Liallan]

People are way to slow in moving. I agree that on fast games, the time limit should be like one minute, no more. People that repeatedly take to much time, every turn, should be kicked from the game.

That depends on whether they're going over the time allotted to them. If they are staying within the allotment, you can't kick them from the game as they are following the boundaries set by the game. If it tells me I'm allowed 2 minutes + 3 minutes per turn, then I'm agreeing to that, and not to your unknown personal preferences.

The solution is finding better times for the games, not kicking people because they use up 3 minutes if 3 minutes is allowed. I don't know how they decide those times.

Now that I know (sort of) Puerto Rico, the game in the original post, I can see why 5 minutes is a ridiculous amount of time to allow and I'm not seeing why they do that. Even as a new player, the only time I'd take a couple of minutes or so (maybe) is when I'm picking a role, whereas carrying out someone else's role might take me only 20 seconds. (It's difficult to tell because I do turn-based and spend quite a bit of time going through the game log catching up and maybe scribbling notes.)