Board Game Arena

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑08 September 2025, 02:03

AvaDDon wrote: ↑08 September 2025, 00:32 Why do you have to wait 50% of the game to give up?

There are situations where it becomes clear who will win when playing with two players.

To make it more burdensome for people who make alt accounts to Elo boost with them. If you could just concede after one move, many of the cheaters would. Yes, it would be easy to see that pattern. But it's also easy to do, and we're already dealing with the type of people who are too lazy to try to get better, so some of them are also too lazy to Elo boost in a way that looks legitimate.

So yes, it's imperfect. It doesn't catch the more motivated cheaters and it restricts people who would like to concede earlier legitimately. Honestly, 50% does not seem like it was carefully thought out to balance all the competing concerns. It just seems arbitrarily chosen as the halfway point between 0 and 100%.

Magicnerd wrote: ↑17 September 2025, 13:37Then when they start to actually play games at a higher ELO level they get their ass kicked.

xspuipuke wrote: ↑10 September 2025, 09:33 Conceding is a 2-player only thing whereas quitting is “available” at all player counts.

ELO classifies players into 7 distinct classes:

Beginner (0 ELO)
Apprentice (1-99 ELO)
Average (100-199 ELO)
Good (200-299 ELO)
Strong (300-499 ELO)
Expert (500-699 ELO)
Master (700+ ELO)

Meryddian wrote: ↑05 October 2025, 09:56

xspuipuke wrote: ↑10 September 2025, 09:33 Conceding is a 2-player only thing whereas quitting is “available” at all player counts.

This frankly stinks for multiple reasons.

I'm pretty new to this site, but there's a lot of games I'm discovering. TMars is pretty awesome, obviously has a lot of depth, but for a newbie, most of what goes online is not very transparent vs. learning a game live.

However, with the live scoring, it's very easy to see when you're playing 2-4 players if you're way behind the other players and there's just no way you're going to win. I find it more gracious to "concede", which you're saying "congrats, you won" versus the "quit" option which feels like you're flipping the bird and walking away. Obviously, you're leaving the game either way, but the penalties are harsh on quitting. And having to wait until 50% on games is even worse when people are just stomping all over you. (Also, things happen - people shouldn't get punished because real life interferes with your ability to finish out a game.)

I think a big reason people might quit games more readily is that there is no way to match up with players of equal skill. You have to basically set up the game table and anybody who wants to can join in. But only once the game is matched can you see that you, a 65 "ELO" is playing with 177s and 259s meaning far more experienced players. I had a game tonight, it became very clear by 80% in that I was getting my butt kicked, internet lag wasn't helping my game, and then when the terraforming was complete, I set my "automatic pass" to let out all run out so I could start a new game, and several minutes later the other two players were *still* taking turns - scoring gap was over 100 and it just felt ... really crap to be getting one's butt beaten so bad, like getting punched down.

There's the "mutual abandonment" option, but nobody seems to like that option, apparently.

If these games had a way to better match players of equal skills - for example, if you were only within 20 ELO of the player who initiated the table - then that would negate whatever discussion there is about "ELO hunting". (It would still go on I suppose, but would be harder to pursue if you are much more evenly matched to your opponents.) Just some newbie thoughts based on experiences playing on other game sites.

xspuipuke wrote: ↑05 October 2025, 15:14 TfM does not work well with zombie players as one player becomes start player way more often than others.

It's extremely annoying you have to wait until 50% game progression to concede.

I come from a chess background where resignation is part of the game. Forcing someone to continue playing in a hopeless position would be bizarre. It also doesn't exist in other games on BGA (like Agricola, for example).

I get that there are concerns about people elo boosting, but the site should be geared towards the experience of legitimate players, not losers who just want to have a big number to show to strangers online. If I have drawn nothing and my opponent has Mars University, Olympus Conference, AI Central and Quantum out, I want to concede, not waste both of our time. It is gentlemanly to concede a lost position with dignity, I want to congratualte my opponent and move on.

Perhaps the concession threshold could at least be lowered to something reasonable (like 10%)? Terraforming Mars is an exponential game, so "50%" game progression does not in fact relate to being halfway through the game in elapsed time.

But the best solution is just to allow concession as is standard in other games.