New mechanism to prevent skipping in tournaments

[CoolBowTiesAre]

This is a very welcome addition, thank you very much!

[mrdoctor]

I'm curious how the default option works. Is there an actual vote, or is this an odd choice of words to describe the old way where anyone could skip an overtime player.

It's poorly worded, but I think the default option is the previous system.

Just to confirm: there is no true vote. In https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=404060 (a tournament I created after the latest changes were implemented), the option "All players can vote to kick players out of time." was checked, but when a player exceeded his time limit I skipped his turn myself, with no voting from any other player.

That's disappointing. A full unanimous vote really ought to be the default. Obviously becomes irrelevant in 2p games, but would be great for 3+ games.

[RazorOz]

It is nice they are implementing something like this.

I do think there could be a better way to actually do it though, because the problem with option #2 to stop skipping altogether is the player who doesn't turn up. Like sure it's fine in a 2 player game, but anything else, if you have this option checked, and someone never turns up nothing happens in your game for 30 days and the game then goes down to pot luck. As has been said an actual vote where everyone has to agree to the decision, similar to how abandoning a game works (where the player overtime automatically agrees) would work better.

I guess also this is most relevant with games like Heat where there's already a solution in place to complete games even if a player leaves the game, because for other games if a player doesn't turn up your game is void either way.

[nik592]

Like sure it's fine in a 2 player game, but anything else, if you have this option checked, and someone never turns up nothing happens in your game for 30 days and the game then goes down to pot luck.

That's not any different to if the timed out player is booted - in some ways it's worse. If the game times out, standings are awarded based on time remaining (which if a player never turns up is mostly random, based on who may have played before the timed out player and who didn't). But if the player is booted, standings are awarded based on age of account (assuming anyone other than the booted player needs eliminating) which has no relationship to the game being played. At least time remaining has a vague linkage, though you're right, it is pot luck, especially if the booted player takes no turns at all as I mentioned.

I do agree a vote would be better as the default option as it might stop people getting to 90% played and taking advantage of someone running slightly over time due to sleep patterns. But I'm guessing that's more work to implement than simply turning off the skip function.

[arrie1987]

What RazorOz is mentioning is that for Heat, the game continous after a skip. For other games the game can "end" and all players can seen as "winners".
So for heat, you can still battle for the win and no luck ending based on whatever.

Maybe if people want to give others still some "extra" time, then maybe the option to how far above your timing you may be would be also ok.

Like more than -24 or -48 hours, then you may skip someone.

Not skipping, can also hurt the others, as the game maybe never finishes, what would be a shame for a game you start.

[nik592]

What RazorOz is mentioning is that for Heat, the game continous after a skip. For other games the game can "end" and all players can seen as "winners".
So for heat, you can still battle for the win and no luck ending based on whatever.

I assume you're responding to me? In which case, I think you're incorrect, as RazorOz specifically referred to:

because the problem with option #2 to stop skipping altogether is the player who doesn't turn up. Like sure it's fine...

I'm aware of the fact that games in Heat continue beyond a player quitting or being removed for going over time - that's a different thing altogether. Because of that, I would say that Heat tournaments should select option 1, where any player can still indicate to kick a player over time. The problem is that for all other games, kicking a player renders the game null and void and awards places based on account age (if more than one player is to be eliminated). So for other games, option 2 is probably better, but for Heat (and any other games they implement playing to the end even if players quit/are kicked), it's option 1 for sure.

[Calmon70]

Not skipping, can also hurt the others, as the game maybe never finishes, what would be a shame for a game you start.

When new tournament round starts all unfinsihed games will finished automatically. That's why skipping is so stupid. It's only for people who use it for own advantages. The only true reason would be to start next round earlier, but usually you have to wait for some longer games of other players anyway.

[BananaHarambe]

Not skipping, can also hurt the others, as the game maybe never finishes, what would be a shame for a game you start.

When new tournament round starts all unfinsihed games will finished automatically. That's why skipping is so stupid. It's only for people who use it for own advantages. The only true reason would be to start next round earlier, but usually you have to wait for some longer games of other players anyway.

I can see why players will skip in certain situations, such as not having the most time remaining. It feels unfair to get 2nd place or worse when a game ends unfinished only because of thinking time. I would rather share 1st place with everyone that has positive time remaining.

With prevent skipping as an option I think they need to change how placement works when maximum game duration is reached. My suggestion:

At maximum game duration, all players with positive thinking time remaining are declared winners, share 1st place and adjust Elo based on %game completion like it currently does. All players with negative thinking time share last place. No more sorting by how much thinking time, you either either within time limit (good) or beyond time limit (bad).

[Meeplelowda]

With prevent skipping as an option I think they need to change how placement works when maximum game duration is reached. My suggestion:

At maximum game duration, all players with positive thinking time remaining are declared winners, share 1st place and adjust Elo based on %game completion like it currently does. All players with negative thinking time share last place. No more sorting by how much thinking time, you either either within time limit (good) or beyond time limit (bad).

If everyone ties how does this resolve the issue of what to do when more than one person must be eliminated? Frequently it's just one slow player who runs out of time.

[BananaHarambe]

With prevent skipping as an option I think they need to change how placement works when maximum game duration is reached. My suggestion:

At maximum game duration, all players with positive thinking time remaining are declared winners, share 1st place and adjust Elo based on %game completion like it currently does. All players with negative thinking time share last place. No more sorting by how much thinking time, you either either within time limit (good) or beyond time limit (bad).

If everyone ties how does this resolve the issue of what to do when more than one person must be eliminated? Frequently it's just one slow player who runs out of time.

My suggestion doesn't fix everything, I mean this more for Swiss, which has a point system rather than eliminations.

Multiplayer elimination format will always be riddled with issues for handling player elimination with timeouts and inactive players I would make a Multiplayer Elimination specific option for how to handle timeouts. Just eliminate out of time players one by one based on most time used. If all eliminations are done, carry on. If more eliminations are required but the players stayed within the time limit, don't eliminate them.

I think a bunch of multiplayer elimination tournament issues stem from how strict the system is about how many players qualify to the next round. I understand why this is wanted sometimes to make clean numbers into the next round, but the input number of players is often unclean which causes player count issues anyways. Having more flexibility on how to run multiplayer elimination in general would be nice.

I would like to option to eliminate 1 player per game rather than "2 qualify" or "3 qualify" for example because 3 qualify requires having all games 4+ players, which is hard to arrange into tables when 3 players qualified. If I could choose 3-4 player tables and 1 player eliminated per table I could make a much smoother tournament with a mix of 3p 2q and 4p 3q games so there's little to no skips and no more issues in semifinals. I'd like to see some adjustments to multiplayer elimination next.