Board Game Arena

Fuchur wrote: ↑05 October 2023, 10:27

Alloran wrote: ↑15 August 2023, 18:27

Mathew5000 wrote: ↑13 August 2023, 20:21 1. A player who is out of time can be expelled only with the unanimous agreement of all players who are not out of time.

This does seem like the most elegant solution short of disabling skipping turns in tournaments entirely. In fact, I feel like this should be the case everywhere on BGA. It allows tables to kick people who really are egregiously not playing (just vanish for days or whatever), while removing the ability for players to abuse the system by kicking someone who is still playing for selfish reasons. I like this a lot, it seems like it has a lot of upsides, no downsides, and should be very easy to implement.

This seems a good idea to me.

Doesn't help with 2-player games. I was just kicked from an Ark Nova tournament game for being 17 minutes over time, because I wasn't playing at 5am.The game had been going along well yesterday, as we were both online at the same time and played much of the turn-based game as though it were a real time game. So the opponent had no reason to think I wasn't playing, yet he kicked me at 32%. Lately, I've seen some tournaments where the description states DO NOT KICK PLAYERS. Maybe the yelling will help, who knows.

Panthergirl wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 08:58

Fuchur wrote: ↑05 October 2023, 10:27

Alloran wrote: ↑15 August 2023, 18:27
This does seem like the most elegant solution short of disabling skipping turns in tournaments entirely. In fact, I feel like this should be the case everywhere on BGA. It allows tables to kick people who really are egregiously not playing (just vanish for days or whatever), while removing the ability for players to abuse the system by kicking someone who is still playing for selfish reasons. I like this a lot, it seems like it has a lot of upsides, no downsides, and should be very easy to implement.

This seems a good idea to me.

Doesn't help with 2-player games. I was just kicked from an Ark Nova tournament game for being 17 minutes over time, because I wasn't playing at 5am.The game had been going along well yesterday, as we were both online at the same time and played much of the turn-based game as though it were a real time game. So the opponent had no reason to think I wasn't playing, yet he kicked me at 32%. Lately, I've seen some tournaments where the description states DO NOT KICK PLAYERS. Maybe the yelling will help, who knows.

Well, here the issue is three-fold
1. Some people are just not reasonable. Can't be fixed.
2. BGA has to let all fast-paced turn-based games follow sleeping hours. Can be fixed.
3. OR BGA has to let players limit who can join based on time-zone. Can be instated.

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 09:40 2. BGA has to let all fast-paced turn-based games follow sleeping hours. Can be fixed.

This is not about fast-paced turn-based games. This is about tournament play. Tournament play is fixed time limit. You can establish playing hours, as per turn-based games, which does mean the clock only ticks for 12 hours in 24. However, this means your playing pool is limited and for less popular games, it can be hard enough to get a tournament off the ground as it is. So a lot of tournaments are set to 24-hour playing times. But this means if your turn happens to roll around during your sleeping hours, you can find yourself at a serious disadvantage. And that's pure luck, based on who else happens to be at your table, and where the timezone of the player before you happens to be. People in all timezones have found themselves disadvantaged and/or booted from tables where they were actively playing and would have finished the game within the tournament maximum time - frequently, games get to the last few turns and a losing player will boot an out of time player because if you happen to have an older account than at least one other player at the table, you will progress and they will not.

Also, as it happens, fast-paced turn-based games DO have to set sleeping hours. So that's not an issue at all, actually, regardless of it also not being the issue here.

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 09:40 3. OR BGA has to let players limit who can join based on time-zone. Can be instated.

People currently make this choice for themselves. While BGA probably could setup a thing where you can't join if your timezone is outside certain times, I suspect this would just result in people monkeying with their timezone to join whatever tournaments they want. Additionally, not everyone plays the same way. I suspect some people are more active during their night, so trying to police what games they can join based on what the majority think appropriate playing hours are may be frustrating for them.

The problem is several fold:

1. Tournament creators need more flexibility in creating their tournaments. This could include longer time limits or turn-based time limits, instead of only fixed (both are generally workable, the first is probably slightly better for tournaments where timing of rounds can be important).
2. Playing hours could be made more workable if they respected different timezones - that is, playing hours are between 10am-10pm in YOUR timezone, not in the timezone of the tournament creator. So I can take my turn during the day, and it flips to a player on the other side of the world where it's currently 4am. Their clock won't start ticking again til 6am. This unfortunately is not as easy as it sounds to develop (which is probably why it hasn't been).
3. Booting in tournaments needs to be improved. Either booting needs to be an "everyone at the table vote", or booting needs to be able to be disabled for tournaments (tournament games have a maximum time related to the selected time limit, so the tables won't run forever if someone AWOLs).
4. The ways of awarding placements when a tournament game does not complete needs to be improved. Currently it's based on most time remaining (if the game is allowed to time out), or seniority of account (if someone is booted). Neither of these is any particular indication of who might be more deserving of the win. Time might mean something if the playing hours respected individual timezones. But this one is tricky, as there isn't an easy way to know who is winning at a given point in many games, due to non-linear scoring conditions (which is probably how most games work).

And there may be more issues. Creating a good tournament system isn't easy and this one certainly isn't perfect. Unfortunately, it also seems to be not under any kind of active development either.

I would like to add that you shouldn't be allowed to skip a player that is in the middle of their turn. I was skipped in my Ark Nova tournament 4 minutes over the time limit (playing at 4am local time mind you) in the middle of my final turn. We had been playing back and forth for an hour. I was just about to win the game and my opponent skipped me. According to their profile where they lived it was 1pm. This was a much lower ranked opponent with less than 70 games played total. Maybe they don't quite get the etiquette when playing with players from all over the world. But if we're both making moves and I'm on my final turn about to win you shouldn't be able to skip a player. Forget that it was the final move even how about just not able to skip someone as they are making a move. I understand someone can start a move and then just walk away from their computer but BGA will time them out eventually.

nik592 wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 11:52 This is not about fast-paced turn-based games. This is about tournament play.

Doesn't matter, my point still stands. I didn't read the whole thread.

nik592 wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 11:52 Also, as it happens, fast-paced turn-based games DO have to set sleeping hours. So that's not an issue at all, actually, regardless of it also not being the issue here.

No, you just misunderstood me, we are in agreement, by sleeping hours I mean the time you sleep. By playing hours I mean the time the game clock is running. I'm talking about fast-paced turn-based adjusting playing hours for each individual based on their local time, a time zone so that the clock will only run during their local time. Like you write, respecting your local time zone.

nik592 wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 11:52 Additionally, not everyone plays the same way. I suspect some people are more active during their night, so trying to police what games they can join based on what the majority think appropriate playing hours are may be frustrating for them.

That would still be better than the amount of time-outs we see currently. So if you join something on the other side of the ocean, you get a "are you sure you want to play in this time zone"-pop-up? And for max customization, time zone sleeping hours preference could be a preference in the settings. Playing hours in a tournament or game could be colored red when out of your preferences....

nik592 wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 11:52 People currently make this choice for themselves.

I think quite often they actually don't, because the tournaments show playing hours in ETC or what it is. Players seem to just join willy-nilly from all over the place and then they time out and get expelled ruining the game for everyone.

But these aren't new issues.

I didn't think about the time zone-adjusting being hard to program. I wonder if it's more that developers don't really consider how this system will work across time zones when they first develop a system where most users are based in adjacent timezones, the same way they don't consider how things will work in languages with right-to-left scripts when designing the UI of an app or website.

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 19:46 Doesn't matter, my point still stands. I didn't read the whole thread.

How about the name of the section of the forums? This section is about tournaments, ergo, this thread is also about tournament play. The title of the thread would also tell you that. I don't fault you for not reading a whole thread, but you should at least be looking at the title and/or the section of the forums it's in.

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 19:46 I think quite often they actually don't, because the tournaments show playing hours in ETC or what it is. Players seem to just join willy-nilly from all over the place and then they time out and get expelled ruining the game for everyone.

But these aren't new issues.

I didn't think about the time zone-adjusting being hard to program. I wonder if it's more that developers don't really consider how this system will work across time zones when they first develop a system where most users are based in adjacent timezones, the same way they don't consider how things will work in languages with right-to-left scripts when designing the UI of an app or website.

Timezones are shown according to your system time as far as I understand it. Forum times can be specified by a setting in the forum settings, but from what I've seen, and what others have said, playing hours are shown in local time based on your browser's clock (which should match your computer's clock). That's the part that makes it hard to program - the server doesn't know what your timezone is when it becomes your turn. They could add a setting for that, but I don't know if there's a convenience factor about shifting timezones - although I would wonder how often a person might be moving timezones (especially to any significant degree).

nik592 wrote: ↑24 October 2023, 01:57

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑23 October 2023, 19:46 Doesn't matter, my point still stands. I didn't read the whole thread.

How about the name of the section of the forums? This section is about tournaments, ergo, this thread is also about tournament play. The title of the thread would also tell you that. I don't fault you for not reading a whole thread, but you should at least be looking at the title and/or the section of the forums it's in.

Actually, I knew what I replied to, I unneccessarily defended myself about a wrong interpretation (I probably read the whole thread previously), you are the one who seem to want to interpret things to be irrelevant:"This is not about fast-paced turn-based games. This is about tournament play. " Why, tournament games are also fast-paced games, and my point was relevant for all fast-paced turn-based games.

Sjarmtrollet wrote: ↑24 October 2023, 12:48 Why, tournament games are also fast-paced games, and my point was relevant for all fast-paced turn-based games.

No, they're not. Tournament games use an entirely different mechanism for time. There is no time per turn, total time is fixed. While using sleeping hours probably would help with one of the issues here (and as I've mentioned, to implement per-player sleeping times is likely difficult), there are other means that would help that are strictly relevant for tournaments. The easiest being, give creators more flexibility in their tournament times - longer total times or actual turn-based timeframes, more variation in intervals (since once you go past 15 days total time, the next option is 30).

The easiest, simplest, and best fix, is still just entirely disabling the ability to skip players There is no reason for it to exist in tournaments, when the length of the game is hard-limited by the tournament anyway.

Alloran wrote: ↑27 October 2023, 20:22 The easiest, simplest, and best fix, is still just entirely disabling the ability to skip players There is no reason for it to exist in tournaments, when the length of the game is hard-limited by the tournament anyway.

This is also true. I still say more flexibility in times is needed - there's a big difference between 15 days total per game and 30 days total per game (which are the top two options), and 15 days is often just a little short, while 30 days is entirely too long. But either of those changes (removing skipping or allowing more time options) should be easy enough to program and would make a huge difference to the tournament experience.