Expell Timer is a joke

[Tisaac]

1. No, the timer are here for a reason, if a player get of time, others should be able to kick him, even if he keeps playing.

2. Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

Easy: Just give this Bonus only once. So IT does Not Matter If you redo the Turn 20 times

Still not good, he could do that at every turn to gain back X additional seconds each turn.

[KeithHendricks]

Desensitize the expel button when a player is actively taking their turn. So as long as a player is actively clicking the buttons and using the actions of the game, expel wouldn’t be an option. But if a player stops using the buttons and actions, say after a 5 second timer (so a timer inside the timer, so to speak), the expel button becomes usable. This would be a way to mitigate the weaponizing of the expel button.

The expel button should be punitive, but not a weapon in a weaker player’s arsenal, to steal victory at the last moment by stalling and preying on another player’s good gamesmanship, to hope that they will not kick them so that they can kick the other. Because it is obvious that if you stall a game long enough both players will tip into the red, and if the better player also has good sportsmanship, the lesser player can kick them from the game. Unless BGA wants the manipulation of the expel button to be seen as a viable strategy, the expel button should be revised.

[Remkar]

Desensitize the expel button when a player is actively taking their turn. So as long as a player is actively clicking the buttons and using the actions of the game, expel wouldn’t be an option. But if a player stops using the buttons and actions, say after a 5 second timer (so a timer inside the timer, so to speak), the expel button becomes usable. This would be a way to mitigate the weaponizing of the expel button.

The expel button should be punitive, but not a weapon in a weaker player’s arsenal, to steal victory at the last moment by stalling and preying on another player’s good gamesmanship, to hope that they will not kick them so that they can kick the other. Because it is obvious that if you stall a game long enough both players will tip into the red, and if the better player also has good sportsmanship, the lesser player can kick them from the game. Unless BGA wants the manipulation of the expel button to be seen as a viable strategy, the expel button should be revised.

Then someone who is losing can just endlessly click and undo things until the winning player has to leave for non-game reasons, then they boot the winning player. Too easy to take advantage of.

[Thomas]

Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

If the player does an action that increases their timer, undoing the action should also undo the increasing of the timer. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Just like when you undo an action that increases victory points).

[Tisaac]

Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

If the player does an action that increases their timer, undoing the action should also undo the increasing of the timer. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Just like when you undo an action that increases victory points).

Except we can't decrease the timer (at least afaik), so that option is not possible.

[Remkar]

Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

If the player does an action that increases their timer, undoing the action should also undo the increasing of the timer. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Just like when you undo an action that increases victory points).

I think the issue, though, (and a developer can correct me if I'm wrong), is that the timer is part of the overarching BGA gaming infrastructure, and undos are part of individual games, and that information isn't "passable" to the BGA infrastructure, and individual developers have no access to the timer.

It would likely require a major rewrite/update of the BGA game running infrastructure.

I'm guessing the amount of money and time it would take outweighs the benefits, especially when you can just play at a slower real time speed if it's really an issue for an individual.

[Thomas]

Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

If the player does an action that increases their timer, undoing the action should also undo the increasing of the timer. Pretty simple, isn’t it? (Just like when you undo an action that increases victory points).

Except we can't decrease the timer (at least afaik), so that option is not possible.

Ok. I didn’t know that.

How about making „increase timer“ an optional action that cannot be undone (like drawing a card cannot be undone because you get new information)? The player can choose to either increase the timer (and loosing the possibility to undo the turn) or to not increase the timer in order to keep the option to undo the turn.

[MasterMystery]

1. No, the timer are here for a reason, if a player get of time, others should be able to kick him, even if he keeps playing.

2. Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

Easy: Just give this Bonus only once. So IT does Not Matter If you redo the Turn 20 times

Did you even read my statement , it depends how it is programmed if a token is not tracked by the Programm individually It doesn't know about once.

[Tisaac]

1. No, the timer are here for a reason, if a player get of time, others should be able to kick him, even if he keeps playing.

2. Ok for double action, but how do you handle player that would play the card and undo to increase their timer ?

Easy: Just give this Bonus only once. So IT does Not Matter If you redo the Turn 20 times

Did you even read my statement , it depends how it is programmed if a token is not tracked by the Programm individually It doesn't know about once.

If you meant "once in the all game", then yeah that could work, although some players would probably complain as well in some cases. But it sounds a reasonable improvement, i will think if it's easy enough to implement.

[booksfr]

Sorry, im really really mad currently, so this post wont be without loud words.

i jsut had a 84min game. It took pretty long, because there were nearly no Projects to support and so on.
But that does not really matter.

Overall i played 1:30min shorter than my opponent, but my last few turns were all double actions, which were pretty complicated so they took a little while.
Lets remember: OVerall i still played faster than my opponent.

But in the last 2 turns my timer went red, because i couldnt do the turns fast enough and my opponent kicked me out of the game while the game already ended. i just had 1 extra action left which i was currently doing and both players already were above 100 points.

WHICH MEANS: I got kicked out of a game while i was in my VERY LAST ACTION OF A 84MIN GAME because 2 turns in the whole game took a little too long.

i mean serously? is this fair or whatever? im so damn frustrated right now i feel like i never want to play ark nova on bga again.


PLZ change the timer in whatever way that this cant happen anymore. im so damn frustrated right now, that i can be kicked out of a game where i didnt even play slower than my opponent, just because a few turns in a row take some time.

here is the game im talking about:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=400562595

I have a thread open here because literally the EXACT same thing happened to me. I was regularly *well within my time in a game, but second to last turn had a double action that I needed to do a specific order and i hit reset turn not undo, making me late redoing the turn. I was kicked just as I was placing the sponsor building.

what's most annoying is that what you describe later in this thread, the timer noticing when someone is playing vs stalling, IS A THING in other BGA games. In Through the Ages, the expel timer will pause and reset a couple of seconds so long as you are clicking and taking actions. I know I've also experienced that in other games. I truly don't understand why the expel timer for Ark Nova is not the same.