This whole system is designed to discourage and heavily penalize players who need to drop out of a game in progress. Which is all well and good, but it means there is little or no discussion or advice on what to do if you really do have to drop out. It is going to happen to me more than most other players because I volunteer for the local fire department, and every now and then will have to respond to some crisis in our local community. So what is the best way to handle that situation when it comes up.
I had identified the "Concede Game" option and thought that would be the best way out. But when the I really needed to do it, the server rejected that request. The quit game option worked after warning me that quitting would bring down a penalty in both reputation and ELO points. Which is OK. I knew that that was a risk I would be taking, especially if I'm playing a 2 person game with a new low ranked player, and just accept that as the price one pays for always being on-call.
What bothered me about the final result was that my opponent did not collect the expected windfall they should have gotten from winning a game against a high ranked player. Instead, the system calculated that the game was only 22% completed when I had to bail out. So they apparently only got 22% of the ELO points they should have gotten. I'm guessing that logic is there to prevent unscrupulous players from boosting their own score by playing against phantom players who quit immediately. But it seems really unfair for a new player playing against a well established player. It shouldn't be too hard add some checks that will separate out real players from phantom ones.
I had identified the "Concede Game" option and thought that would be the best way out. But when the I really needed to do it, the server rejected that request. The quit game option worked after warning me that quitting would bring down a penalty in both reputation and ELO points. Which is OK. I knew that that was a risk I would be taking, especially if I'm playing a 2 person game with a new low ranked player, and just accept that as the price one pays for always being on-call.
What bothered me about the final result was that my opponent did not collect the expected windfall they should have gotten from winning a game against a high ranked player. Instead, the system calculated that the game was only 22% completed when I had to bail out. So they apparently only got 22% of the ELO points they should have gotten. I'm guessing that logic is there to prevent unscrupulous players from boosting their own score by playing against phantom players who quit immediately. But it seems really unfair for a new player playing against a well established player. It shouldn't be too hard add some checks that will separate out real players from phantom ones.
It is accessed from the same menu that has the concede option. It can be done at any point in the game (regardless of game progress) and with any number of players. However, all active players must agree to the abandon. If even one player wants the game to continue, it will. But, if all players agree to abandon, the system treats it as if the game never existed: no ELO is adjusted, win/loss stays the same, etc.