Board Game Arena

tbhp wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 00:59
Everyone already agrees on that. That doesn't mean we're not gonna criticize it when someone sees that as an invitation to do something even worse.

If the people you were playing with were people you know in real life, would you still feel as free to kick out without consideration for how it may impact the other players in the game? (or even the one you are kicking out)

You don't know that the game won't be completed in a week

If you don't want to play different instances of the same game, that sounds problematic for you.

nik592 wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 00:37

Big Bad Lex wrote: ↑25 May 2026, 13:25 There is a problem with the time period allocated and time zones. It is fine if all players are in the same time zone, BUT, if a European player is in turn order after (say) a player from the USA there can be an 8 hour time delay. So if a European takes a turn at 10.00PM and other players take their turns shortly after, the North American will take their turn around 3.00PM their time. The following European goes to bed promptly after taking a turn but then wakes up and logs on at say 9.00PM and 10 hours have been deducted from their time allocation. Over a week they will have lost 3 days of time just because they were asleep.

Other players in the same game who might be losing, then see the red timer as an opportunity to snag a win and boot the 'late' guy out. This has now happened to me 4 times in tournaments for loss of ranking points and time penalties. In open play now, I just won't join if there is an American listed.

Could not a 'sleep' allowance be introduced where each player does not incur time loss from say 23.00hrs to o7.00hrs in their time zone to reflect the fact that they aren't being slow, just asleep.

I used to think this was true (that being in a different timezone negatively impacts your chances of being booted), but it's actually not. For one thing, what you need to consider is not timezones, but play times. My partner goes on BGA once per day, usually in the evening. Sometimes earlier in the day on weekends. I go on BGA usually over breakfast, lunch, after work and before bed. On weekends, I may only be on at breakfast and before bed if I'm out doing something. Sometimes, I have insomnia, and I'll be on BGA at 4am. Our play times are different even though we're in the same timezone. Timezones may influence play time - most people probably do play in "standard" waking hours, so yes, it's more likely that two players who live in the same timezone may share similar play times (and my habits overlap somewhat with my partner's), but not always.

Additionally, if you have 4 players who operate on the same play times - let's say they all live in the same region, and are on between 7pm-bedtime for ease of understanding. Someone among them will be the last to go to bed. The player who follows them will then have the clock tick all the way from bedtime til 7pm the next day when they go back on. Assuming that pattern remains the same, that same player will likely eventually run out of time (if it's a tournament game), but they're all running on the same play times.

What you truly want is players with equidistant play times through the 24 hour period. So you want a player who operates from midnight-6am, 6am-midday, midday-6pm, 6pm-midnight. Each player's clock should run down equally. Very possibly, these 4 hypothetical players would be from different timezones, not all from the same one. But the hypothetical is unlikely - even if people had those nice 6 hour periods where they were active, they could make their move anywhere in those 6 hours and some players clocks would tick down more than others.

In short, the tournament framework isn't ideal, but is setup that way for a reason (something about guaranteeing maximum tournament length). If you find yourself getting booted pretty often, your options are to either join tournaments with playing hours that match your playing hours (and this has never been feasible for me, as I've never seen a tournament without a big chunk of hours in my normal sleep time), or choose tournaments with long enough time limits that you'll probably be ok, and rely on the generosity of your fellow players to not boot you just because you're over time with a few moves to go. And if it happens, you need to accept that as a risk of tournaments - the penalty for being booted from a tournament is lesser anyway, possibly because of this "unfairness" - or not play them.

Also, the idea of players nominating their "sleep" time and BGA considering a player's sleep time individually has been floated before, but I suspect that would cause all kinds of havoc with maximum table times for a tournament (I haven't really considered the maths of it). Not to mention, it'd be a pretty big change to the framework and possibly not one BGA can see the benefit in. It's not a bad suggestion, but unlikely to happen anytime soon.

tbhp wrote: ↑25 May 2026, 23:28 Your post sounds contradictory. If no one wants to get to that point, as you say, then why kick out? If you truly don't like this outcome, then why not just not do it? No one is forcing you to use the feature.

I agree that we can't just give everyone infinite time. But at the same time, there's no need to ever kick out someone who is out of time, because the alternative is continuing the game like normal

Jellby wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 09:19
No one wants to get the point when a player can be expelled (runs out of time). At that time you have to choose between two undesirable outcomes:
1. Should I expel the player?
2. Should I not expel the player and continue waiting?

As I said, I don't want to do any of them, but I have to do one of them. Sometimes I'll choose #1, sometimes I'll choose #2, it depends on many factors. Perhaps you'd say that I have other options:
3. Should I propose to abandon the game?
4. Should I quit the game myself?
5. Should I ignore the game and let others expel me if they want when the time comes?

Those are also undesirable things that I don't want to do. Sometimes I might choose #3, but never #4 or #5 if #1 is available.

Jellby wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 09:19 No, the alternative is not "continuing the game like normal". The game is already not like normal, it's taking too long, longer than initially agreed. You may not mind having turn-based games lingering on forever, others may.

Cile wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 02:26 The person who ran out of time is the one making the necessary conditions for the game to end. Once again, you are providing the argument for why players who run out of time should be automatically removed: The users enforcing the rules are being blamed more than the users breaking the rules.

That sounds like victim blaming. Being at the origin of a causal chain of events doesn't make you responsible for the choice of the offender. No one forced them to kick out someone, they themselves made that choice.

The point of having a clock is that hopefully the player will start playing faster once their time goes down, or once they are out of time. But if you actually kick them out when they are out of time, this defeats the whole point of why the system exists. You chose to pull the trigger and terminate a game before its natural ending, which is exactly what this website tries to avoid by having this system in place.

Cile wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 02:26 The person who ran out of time is the one making the necessary conditions for the game to end. Once again, you are providing the argument for why players who run out of time should be automatically removed: The users enforcing the rules are being blamed more than the users breaking the rules.

tbhp wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 15:17 Like I said to the other user, the time you agree on is the maximum duration of the game. The time that is allotted to each player has no relation to the duration you signed up for.

BarnardsStar wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 15:46

tbhp wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 15:17 Like I said to the other user, the time you agree on is the maximum duration of the game. The time that is allotted to each player has no relation to the duration you signed up for.

And, like the other user said to you, this isn’t about tournaments. Nobody else here is talking about tournaments, and this argument makes no sense in that context as there isn’t a “maximum duration” for any other game type.

tbhp wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 15:54 You are defending users who are using obvious flimsy excuses to justify their behavior.

tbhp wrote: ↑26 May 2026, 15:54 They are kicking out just because they can.