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Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 07 September 2024, 20:11
by Calmon70
Ceaseless wrote: 07 September 2024, 19:27 The goal was to get rid of the slow player and end the game, maybe even to hit their reputation. You can wait for the next round of the tournament without having to deal with that game or player anymore. Playing a game with more than 2 players in a tournament system is a recipe for disaster, but players should already be aware of that going in, there's nothing to be done about that. The only solution to offer there is to stick with 2 player games. There's no great way to rank players if someone wants to slowroll the game to the point where completion is a problem. A player playing at a reasonable pace getting outranked because of time isn't really a good outcome either.
There is no destaster! Tournamnet system takes care already all the time. Tournament creator defines how long games lasts and when new round start.

Lets say you have first round and there are 35 created tables as example. There is no advantage in ending 1 game earlier because the next round starts when ALL of them are finished. There is no benefit to give any player of this rounds control over what should happen. People abuse it and skip to bring OTHER players behind them (account age matters here!).

Just let the tournament system end the turn when players are not able to finish it in time. That's already in and works!

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 07 September 2024, 20:17
by Oxmeister
nik592 wrote: 07 September 2024, 11:16
Oxmeister wrote: 07 September 2024, 11:06 Thank you for letting me know which of my points are valid.. I would point out though, that all of your counter arguments fringe on the game maximum time limit, which only limits the extent of the problems I've pointed out, rather than negating them. If you disregard the player clock, , one player not adhering to their time limits can hold up 31 who are ready to go, round after round - where you stand on that is ultimately a matter of opinion, which has existed as long as the hobby.
True, but whether a player is eliminated by booting or by having the least time when maximum table time is reached, the result is the same. And once that player (or players if there's more than one) is gone, the remaining pool should include fewer people who aren't taking their turns. This is assuming that people in negative time in tournaments actually ARE not taking their turns. The other issue around tournament timings is that people who go into negative time frequently do so because there simply isn't enough time allocated for each game in a tournament (again, this is typically a problem in turn-based tournaments as far as I understand - I don't play real-time tournaments, so I'm not aware if that's a problem there, though I wouldn't expect it to be). One of the proposed solutions to that is to allow longer maximum table time for turn-based tournaments, a suggestion that would be pretty easy to add, but is also ignored. But if skipping is needed in real-time tournaments because there are really that many people holding tournaments up, then I can't see an issue with keeping it there, unless someone who plays more real-time than me can argue a reason for it not to be there either.

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 07 September 2024, 20:24
by Oxmeister
Calmon70 wrote: 07 September 2024, 17:29
Ceaseless wrote: 07 September 2024, 16:30 What if players don't want to play a game with slow players going out of time? They can skip the player and no longer have to deal with that game anymore.
How does it help to advance to the next round of the tournament? You have to wait for the other games to finish anyway.

And the far bigger problem: By skipping in a multiplayer game, you remove this one player, but what about the rest? They are doomed by the skip because the placement is based on account time and no longer related to the actual outcome.

When the game is ended by the tournament system, at least the time factor plays a role: it ranks from the least time remaining (last) to the most time remaining (first).
That's not necessarily true - some tournaments allow for games to start as soon as the players involved are ready. Even when that's not true, in the mid-later phases, you might be the last game if somebody has timed out.

However, if there's something most of us probably can agree about, it's that this is far bigger problem in multiplayer games, and I wonder the type of games we favour might have something to do with our respective varying stances. As I've already noted I overall support the idea that a players should be able skip a player who is egregiously slow , but it shouldn't really be down to one person to decide the outcome - maybe allowing a skip in the case that all other players press it might be fairer.

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 07 September 2024, 20:46
by Calmon70
Oxmeister wrote: 07 September 2024, 20:24 That's not necessarily true - some tournaments allow for games to start as soon as the players involved are ready. Even when that's not true, in the mid-later phases, you might be the last game if somebody has timed out.
This are only 2 player games with a fix bracket afaik. But sure, there are edge cases especially in smaller tournaments which runs quicker. 2 player matches in tournaments aren't the problematic ones. We can even leave the skip button here. The problem appears as soon as you have 3+ tables in your tournament.

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 07 September 2024, 21:22
by menettm
RobertBr wrote: 06 June 2024, 07:48 Not a new suggestions:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=97445
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=107708
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=37022
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=35239
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=35289

I wonder how many people who complain about it upvote suggestions? I would also point out that the suggestions disagree what to do about it. And that while it would definitely be a good idea to eliminate the skip specifically in tournaments it would not completely remove time as an element (you could still run the clock down to end the game based on time - which is fair but would likely still provoke complaints).
Several persons write in this forum entry. Do they have voted on bug/suggestions listed above? ;)

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 08 September 2024, 00:30
by nik592
menettm wrote: 07 September 2024, 21:22 Several persons write in this forum entry. Do they have voted on bug/suggestions listed above? ;)
I personally have. One of those suggestions is the 11th most voted for, and yet has not even acknowledgement from BGA. That said, all the ones above also haven't seemed to move in the time I've been a member (apart from a couple of new ones popping in).

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 08 September 2024, 12:53
by Ceaseless
Calmon70 wrote: 07 September 2024, 20:11
Ceaseless wrote: 07 September 2024, 19:27 The goal was to get rid of the slow player and end the game, maybe even to hit their reputation. You can wait for the next round of the tournament without having to deal with that game or player anymore. Playing a game with more than 2 players in a tournament system is a recipe for disaster, but players should already be aware of that going in, there's nothing to be done about that. The only solution to offer there is to stick with 2 player games. There's no great way to rank players if someone wants to slowroll the game to the point where completion is a problem. A player playing at a reasonable pace getting outranked because of time isn't really a good outcome either.
There is no destaster! Tournamnet system takes care already all the time. Tournament creator defines how long games lasts and when new round start.

Lets say you have first round and there are 35 created tables as example. There is no advantage in ending 1 game earlier because the next round starts when ALL of them are finished. There is no benefit to give any player of this rounds control over what should happen. People abuse it and skip to bring OTHER players behind them (account age matters here!).

Just let the tournament system end the turn when players are not able to finish it in time. That's already in and works!
I already told you what the benefit was and that there's no great way to rank unfinished games.

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 10 September 2024, 11:18
by Godsmurf
Just want to voice my support for the statement in the topic. There is no reason to quit tournament games when there is actually enough time to finish them before the next game, and it is both maddening and saddening how many lame players there are on BGA who would happily ruin a game that is 90% finished and has plenty of time to get finished 100%, just to steal a cheap victory.

But as in everything, BGA is completely deaf for its user base. Got to crank out more and more games for publishers, rather than fix this and other glaring flaws in the system.

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 03 November 2024, 17:59
by Elosan
Godsmurf wrote: 10 September 2024, 11:18 Just want to voice my support for the statement in the topic. There is no reason to quit tournament games when there is actually enough time to finish them before the next game, and it is both maddening and saddening how many lame players there are on BGA who would happily ruin a game that is 90% finished and has plenty of time to get finished 100%, just to steal a cheap victory.

But as in everything, BGA is completely deaf for its user base. Got to crank out more and more games for publishers, rather than fix this and other glaring flaws in the system.
at the very least there should be a way to report abuse of the system.

just had a tournament game go into last turn at 10pm my time, 2nd place has 8 hours time left i have 5, 3 and 4 play almost immediately. 2nd place time zone is 4 hours ahead of me and wakes up first, plays his turn 2 hours after i time out. realizes he cant win and instead of hitting submit he hits skip.

i lose. he wins(ironically he gets the same tournament points as if he came 2nd)

Re: There are ZERO reasons tournament games have "Skip" other than some people abuse it for personal advantages

Posted: 04 November 2024, 06:30
by FSKFSK
The problem with "skip" is it creates a negative incentive. If you're losing, you want to skip and force a tie. If you're winning, you want the game to end normally.

One solution is to just autoskip the moment someone runs out of time. That would eliminate accusations of abuse, since the tournament would be doing it. But then games that could have finished would be forced to end.

My favorite solution is looking at time remaining vs completion percentage. Example: If a game is 80% completed and only 50% of the total time is uses (say 5/10 days), then skip should be disabled. If a game is 10% completed and 50% of the total time was used, then skip should be allowed. That would at least eliminate "skip when the game is 1-2 moves from ending and someone just barely runs out of time".

My proposal is "If percentage time used is less than completion percentage of the game, disable skip." By "total time", I refer to the maximum game length set in the tournament. (10 days, 15 days, 7 days, etc.).