Board Game Arena

Nothing BGA can come up with will fix this. Why? Because people that have bad karma really don't care about the "judgements" of BGA or its players, they just need the "fix" of a win. The notices I get from BGA whenever I am on the receiving end of this system is laughable. Just the use of the wording. Like they actually use courtroom terms like verdict and guilty. Which is a very juvenile western understanding of what Karma actually is. "Blah blah you are bad, blah if you want to petition you can but you better grovel..." Please.... They simply create a new account. Ban the email? They get a new email. Ban the IP? They simply turn on a VPN...Best route is to simply grow a thicker skin and let people be people. Good and bad.

YepGGDawg wrote: ↑20 September 2022, 21:12 Nothing BGA can come up with will fix this. Why? Because people that have bad karma really don't care about the "judgements" of BGA or its players, they just need the "fix" of a win. The notices I get from BGA whenever I am on the receiving end of this system is laughable. Just the use of the wording. Like they actually use courtroom terms like verdict and guilty. Which is a very juvenile western understanding of what Karma actually is. "Blah blah you are bad, blah if you want to petition you can but you better grovel..." Please.... They simply create a new account. Ban the email? They get a new email. Ban the IP? They simply turn on a VPN...Best route is to simply grow a thicker skin and let people be people. Good and bad.

I completely disagree. If someone consistently joins games they can't keep up with, and that keeps they're karma from being high, starting a new account (that doesn't start with max karma anyway), doesn't magically get and keep them maxed if we cap karma gain. The only way they could max karma is to consistently play within the allotted times.

And I don't even think we're taking about the same thing. I'm not running into "bad actors" who don't want to lose, I'm just encountering people who don't respect play move time. Those people aren't going to go through the hassle of new accounts. They'll just play slower games (or faster games with people who don't set restrictions). They'll likely barely notice, but those of us who do care, won't have to play with them.

I think people are making this more complicated than it needs to be.

edit: double post - not sure why it did that.

and we're pointing out you're perhaps being too simplistic in how you view this.

Let's look at those LOTS of games I have a timer in shall we? How many of those are because either I have been learning a game, or helping someone who was and explaining to them? How many of those are timer overun by just 1s in the last turn (like my break the code earlier today)? How many of those are where there have been BRB and other players are fine with it in a long game where other people overrun and took longer too? Life happens, people get phonecalls, doorbells, some even play at work (mentioning no names my belgian friend...) and have to pause randomly etc etc.

I do see that people not taking turns in TB is annoying, I have one game currently with a crazy time overrun (I think she was over by 31 days+, so long I had to raise a bug report as the game wouldn't even open for any of us anymore) and even after she's back from her trip to the land of no internet she is still taking more than a day per turn, but she does take her turn eventually when she can, and the game result isn't affected by it. The only thing we need is patience and a willingness to understand why she is taking longer, and in her case there are good reasons why.

I don't think we're going to agree on this, you want a ruthless penalising system. I hope you get it and it bites you back when you overrun due to unforeseen circumstances. And I hope it is done in a way that doesn't put off new joiners trying to learn games or affect normal users who are willing to cut people a bit of slack. Persistent clock run-downs to try and frustrate a game is one thing, but to penalise every time penalty even if isolated and short, or by agreement etc? No thanks. Inflexible draconian penalties do not a happy site make.

I notice you overran in your wingspan game today. Why was that? How long did you overrun? What penalty would have been appropriate to apply to you for this heinous crime?

I'm not being simplistic in how I VIEW it, I'm trying to be simplistic in how to FIX it. We could come up with a complicated, but a extremely fair, multi-faceted approach. That would require tons of coding, lots of explanation, and a partial site overhaul. BGA obviously won't do that, so I was looking for a relatively simple way to address the issue that wouldn't require tons of extra coding on BGA's end so it actually had a chance of going through.

We're also not staying on topic, and you seem to keep making it personal personal. We've got tangents all over the place. Maybe if we try to focus on the basics?

Here are my points.
1 - Karma is mostly meaningless
2 - Fast players can't consistently find other fast players to finish games with
3 - Karma is SUPPOSED to help with this
4 - It doesn't

Is any of that not true?

I offered 1 possible solution and asked for other ideas.
My simple idea was just capping karma gain per day.
That isn't my preferred solution, but it is simple a step in the right direction in my opinion.


If you want to get personal, that one change would barely affect you. Looking at your last 60 days, it would have restricted you from 85+ karma games for maybe a day or two when you got booted twice within a couple days (depending on the karma cap and how much you played). That's all.



Would it be more palatable if the solution went in the other direction? Have "super" karma or something that can go over 100, but you can only earn points over 100 by not missing turns for certain periods of time. And then you lose that super karma by missing turns (but only down to 100). So it's not a penalty, it's a bonus. Then let people restrict games to 101+ karma? It doesn't affect the masses, but it lets consistent players find each other.

I'm not trying to punish people, I'm trying to help people find the right people to play with so more games can happen between players that have similar expectations, it just so happens that karma hits were the easiest target to pick (since BGA uses karma partially in that manner already).

could there be an easier fix? Your problem is TB players not turning up to take their goes in a timely fashion? (is this arena or standard or both?*)

Could they not just have a game setting for TB with "80 karma deduction for >3 overruns of more than 5% of turn time or 15% cumulative over the game". Nuke them into orbit? This assumes it's standard mode. Harsher if arena where it pairs you up without being able to check what the settings are. climbing back from 20% is not easy (and you can't chat, not even private chat, at 20% SFAIK)

OR have another rating alongside karma for TB punctuality % based on number of turns taken on time and % of games with no overrun then you could set the table rating filter to suit the host's preference. % on time x % no overrun x 100 = punctuality % (blue bar below the green bar)? It could even be made game specific (or is that a bridge too far?)

*arena TB also annoys me as it relies on you getting an email to say it has made a game. This blows and I don't play arena TB for fear of missing the start of a game and getting kicked.

MrBeardy wrote: ↑21 September 2022, 03:48 could there be an easier fix? Your problem is TB players not turning up to take their goes in a timely fashion? (is this arena or standard or both?*)

Could they not just have a game setting for TB with "80 karma deduction for >3 overruns of more than 5% of turn time or 15% cumulative over the game". Nuke them into orbit? This assumes it's standard mode. Harsher if arena where it pairs you up without being able to check what the settings are. climbing back from 20% is not easy (and you can't chat, not even private chat, at 20% SFAIK)

OR have another rating alongside karma for TB punctuality % based on number of turns taken on time and % of games with no overrun then you could set the table rating filter to suit the host's preference. % on time x % no overrun x 100 = punctuality % (blue bar below the green bar)? It could even be made game specific (or is that a bridge too far?)

*arena TB also annoys me as it relies on you getting an email to say it has made a game. This blows and I don't play arena TB for fear of missing the start of a game and getting kicked.

Which was basically my first suggestion
I like the others suggestions to cap karma gain per day, or the 100* meaning stayed at 100 for X days.
I am amazed how much people misunderstood the topic of this thread and answered off topic.

I think that is only one side of the problem. I was just kicked out of a game at 88% completion where I was playing my turns regularly by the player who was last. I only went slightly over the time allocation and played as fast as I could. That should not be allowed but unfortunately happens and is allowed by the system. This type of behaviour goes on unchecked. In my opinion, kicking a player out should require the agreement of all players on that table as a minimum. Some games like Castles of Burgundy take much more time for the person who goes first each turn while the other players can start planning their turn at the same time. I think the feature that allows players to kick out a player that is slightly over the time limit is broken.
I hope the developers take notice and restrict the instances in which a player can kick another player out.

Well, after reading other people's thoughts, and thinking things over, my general ranking right now of the considered options is this:

1. "Punctuality" Meter. This may be the most likely to accomplish what I'm interested in.
Possibly 0-100 like Karma.
+something(1?) for finishing a game without exceeding time limit.
-something(10?) for first time exceeding time limit in a game.
-something(1?) for every turn that ends in negative time remaining.
CAP on gain per day (3?)
Can restrict game access by Punctuality.
PROS: Seems to accomplish the desired goals without interfering with current Karma setup.
CONS: Probably requires the most work of all the options to implement.

2. "Punctuality" Tag (or Karma Tag?).
Finish some number of games (20?) over at least some number of days (10?) to earn this tag.
Can restrict game access by this tag.
PROS: Possibly easier to code than Punctuality Meter, but seems to roughly accomplish the same goal.
CONS: Still requires coding in a new element, and may be a little opaque to some.

3. Karma gain cap. (And possibly also allow tighter Karma filtering.)
Cap amount of Karma one can gain in a day (3?)
(Allow Karma filtering of 95+ and 100)
PROS: Easiest to code and basically accomplishes the goals.
CONS: Some people find it unfair?

4. Karma hits not just for getting booted, but also for going over the time limit.
-something(5?) for first time exceeding time limit in a game.
-something(1?) for every turn that ends in negative time remaining.
PROS: Also pretty easy to code and works within the current karma system while accomplish similar goals.
CONS: Some people will find it too harsh, especially in real time games (possibly require people to have to anonymously"vote" at end of game if they want you to receive karma hits, although this adds to coding complexity).