Players not trying to win

[Matt_B_76]

Hello all, I know this is a site for games and I try not to get too upset, but I'm wondering if there are others out there who feel the way I do about players that join a game and sometimes aren't trying to win, but rather, are just trying to ensure others lose. Some might immediately think, "Isn't that the same thing?".....No, it isn't and here's what I mean....

I LOVE King Domino. I particularly like the 3 player game....I probably play 10 games of it a day. Once in a blue moon (like my last game right before I posted this), I'll find a player who does the following:

I or one of the other players is choosing the tile/domino last.....the player has options that can benefit him/her, but instead chooses a tile that DOES NOT HELP him/her, but is designed to keep me or the other player from getting points. PARTICUALRLY when this is done late in the game, at the expense of trying to get the highest possible score he/she can get....they do it to try and ensure 2nd or just to deny points to the other player(s)...this REALLY bothers me.

Am I the only one?

A possible solution I thought of (besides the obvious, just play with people I know and enjoy playing with) is to have a version where you can't see the other player's boards/kingdoms. Obviously you could see what dominos they chose....but that's it. Is this a possibility?

Anyway, I know I must sound like a bitter player (I actually won the game I just played where I saw this bad behavior happening).....and I know "It's JUST a game!".....but am I the only one who is bothered by this behavior? Anyway, have fun all!

[LEDave2020]

Hi Matt
I agree to a level, although with ranking points available, people sometimes play to finish 2nd rather than 3rd or 4th, so as not to loose points.
I do however hate it when someone who knows a game plays with the sole intention of spoiling the game for the others...
In a Welcome To game recently a player's only moves were to place high / low tiles at the illogical end of the board, thus ensuring that after half a dozen moves they were unable to go any further, and the game ended shortly afterwards.
I checked their history and they had previously won at the game, so their moves had been intentional.
The most irritating thing was that there seemed no opportunity to report the player, as the reporting mechanism just suggested giving them a red thumb!

[MoiMagnus]

(1) Trying to score as high as possible, and trying to win, are two vastly different goals. If by sacrificing 4 points, you're making the player at the top lose 10 points, you might be increasing your chances of winning significantly.
[In fact, in a two players game, this is even more extreme: making your opponent lose one point is as good as winning one point for yourself, so denying your opponent good tiles is often the objectively best strategy.]
There is a whole category of board games where the more experienced the peoples around the table are, the less points peoples are scoring as everyone is preventing each other from scoring a lot of points (and this is the optimal way to play, for those games at least; it's suboptimal in a lot of other games)

(2) Peoples play for different things, and in particular:
+ Some peoples play only to win, other peoples play because they like to build a kingdom/engine/deck/whatever (and most are in between).
+ Some peoples consider second place as a minor victory, other consider anything but first place as a defeat.

(3) BGA, by the way they use the ELO system, rewards players that (a) play to win and (b) compromise and aim for second place as soon as victory is beyond grasp. Last place is usually devastating for ELO, so avoiding it can be the number one priority for some players.
=> To have players behave differently, the first step is to deal with the existing incentives. For example, if the ELO you got was dependent on how high you scored instead of your ranking, peoples would even tend toward cooperative play ("please let me have this, and I will let you have something else in a future round"). Though I'm sure a lot of peoples would complain if such a change would be made, because:

Am I the only one?

Almost certainly not. But I'm not convinced you're part of the majority of (online) players.
Personally, I have multiple "mindsets" that I use for my different tables of friends, because I have friends who enjoy different "kind" of fun.

[Matt_B_76]

In a two player game, I can MAYBE understand that approach, but in a 3 player on a site like this...where, unless I'm missing something, your ranking doesn't lead to money or medals or anything....so as far as I'm concerned, trying to come in 2nd vice 3rd at the expense of somebody's fun is just plain rude.

I REALLY want an option for this game (and probably others as well) to be only able to see your own board and probably have a much faster timer on choosing tiles. Somebody taking 5 minutes (I'm exaggerating, but basically the fullest time possible) to examine every possible outcome on their opponent's boards just KILLS the game part to me and turns it into an exercise in math....but I'm sure I'm the only one or one of the few.

Thanks for your response though. Again, I have ZERO desire to play people who are not trying to get the best possible score for themselves but limit their opponents....it just ruins it to me. (In King Domino....not talking about any other games)

[RobertBr]

....they do it to try and ensure 2nd or just to deny points to the other player(s)...this REALLY bothers me.

Anyway, I know I must sound like a bitter player ...

Yes, you do. You also sound like you do not entirely understand board games. 2nd place is better than 3rd place, if a player can elevate themselves from one to the other by denying you points it is entirely appropriate that they do so. If you did not mean that, well then you should not have said it, we can only evaluate your meaning by what you post.
If a players choice makes no difference to their own position then it is much more arbitrary what they do, though it is worth noting that scores are often used as tie-breaks in some tournament arrangements so depressing another players score is a reasonable heuristic to use when you have nothing else to go on.
If you mean that the player actively hurt their own position solely to reduce your score, ie a compact or king-making, that would actually be a breach of the site rules. But that is exceptionally rare. More often a weak player just played a bad move because they didn't fully understand the consequences/weren't concentrating etc.

Should this sound harsh on you bear in mind that your behavior is itself problematic - and something that does happen semi-regularly. Every so often a player pops up on the forums to complain there is king-making/compacts in the games they are playing in (or that people are using computers; or for Yahtzee/Backgammon that the dice rolling mechanism is rigged). The complaint is always extrapolated from just one or two games and ignores other more likely explanations (such as the player just made a mistake or you failed to understand their reasoning). And what purpose does the post serve? The only effect it can possibly have is to undermined the assumption of good faith which is necessary for the enjoyable play of board games. Is that really what you want to do? Diminish everyones enjoyment and confidence in their fellow players. If you don't want to do that ask yourself what purpose your post serves beyond letting steam on your own frustrations, and is you indulging your frustrations worth the cost to everybody else?

[Matt_B_76]

Okay, this is my last post on this subject....but to insult me by telling me I don't understand boardgames when I've been playing them for probably 40 of my 45 years on this planet serves what purpose exactly?

I stand by what I said.....on a site that is (presumably to me) designed to allow people from all over the planet to have fun playing games (I have never played in any tournaments on this site)...and NOT one designed to give anyone any kind of monetary or other 'reward' for coming in 2nd vice 3rd; I see zero reason to hurt your own score by failing to choose tiles that would give you a higher score but WOULD decrease another player's score and allow one to get second vice third in a three player game when no choice would ensure you won. To me, this is poor sportsmanship/gamesmanship, etc. There is no 'silver medal', so this is just taking away someone's fun for no reason......and by the way, the player DID NOT elevate themselves to 2nd place, they came in third, they just reduced my score and the player who came in second....so while I've never heard the phrase 'compact or king-making', presumably, this is what they were doing.

My MAIN purpose in posting was to see if there were others who feel the same way I do and perhaps see if there is an option for a game that is more 'blind' by hiding the other players boards and/or by having a shorter period of time to chose tiles to force players to spend less time figuring out what might hurt their opponent and more time worrying about how to better their own score. Again, this is for the King Domino 3 player game only. To me, what this player did is akin to to runners in a race, when another runner has already crossed the finish line, deliberately falling down to trip up other runners. Maybe they prevent these runners from getting a better final position than they do, but they do NOT win the race. You get the best position you can in the race by running as fast as you can...period. Even if tripping up other runners is 'legal' (which it isn't, but this is the analogy that came to mind), this is still pretty poor sportsmanship.....but if money or an Olympic Medal or something was on the line, fine....but on a site like this?

[MoiMagnus]

so while I've never heard the phrase 'compact or king-making', presumably, this is what they were doing.

Kingmaking is the act of playing against your own interest in order to make someone else win (or more generally, to play in a way that deliberately and actively make someone else than you win). The most jarring case is when you try to advantage a friend or a loved one just because you like them.

Hurting yourself to hurt even more someone else, ensuring yourself a better place that if your hadn't, is just called "playing competitively". It is debatable how much people should do this in a family game like Kingdomino, but some online players do definitely play Kingdomino for the mental gymnastic of having to compute which tile score the most point to which player and have to cleverly balance scoring a lot of points and denying points to others players to maximise their chance of being first and minimise their chance of being last.

EDIT: And your suggestion of hiding Kingdom is unlikely to solve the issue. Peoples who play competitively would still mentally remember who took the most "Black Crowns" and avoid letting them have even more Black tiles, etc. It would be less precise and peoples might misevaluate and hurt the person that they though was first but in fact was last, but they would still try to do it. On the other hand, peoples who play more casually would lose the possibility of looking at the other player's kingdom and how well they're doing, which would probably reduce their enjoyment.

[RobertBr]

... I've been playing them for probably 40 of my 45 years on this planet ...
... I've never heard the phrase 'compact or king-making', presumably, this is what they were doing.

I always find this difficult to reconcile. A player asserts that they have no knowledge of basic terminology for describing board games yet they simultaneously assert that they possess a huge expertise and no-one should point out their lack of understanding. Almost all of these complaints seem to stem from a lack of self-awareness.

[Ad-Elie]

Hiding Kingdom wouldn't work here, as BGA tries to propose the game as intended by the creators. Kingdomino is a game where all the information is clearly visible for everybody, so hiding boards would be a completely different experience !
For Welcome to it would stick better to the reality because it's so hard to have a look on those tiny papers in real life...

[ifasoldt]

To me, this is poor sportsmanship/gamesmanship, etc. There is no 'silver medal', so this is just taking away someone's fun for no reason

There is also no "gold medal". You may choose to think that there is only one winner and all others are equal losers, but that is a personal choice that is no more valid than someone who thinks second is better than third etc. and in fact runs contrary to the rating system that the site uses, AND contrary to how most of life works-- it is better to place second rather than fourth in most things in life. I would tend to argue that playing for best possible place rather than merely trying to "score as highly as possible" makes for a richer/deeper gaming experience as it generally raises the complexity of the gamesmanship, although again, I allow that thinking as you do is a valid choice.