Board Game Arena

I have tried several turn based games and have been disappointed that in every one so far, there is at least one player runs out of time without ever taking a turn. Hopefully this will get better in some new games I queued with reputation filters, but since the highest filter allowed is 75%, which every one starts with, I still end up in games with new users who might not realize they're in a game.

The user interface could be more clear when queuing for a game that you are still in the queue and will be placed in a game even if you leave the page.

Second, In one of my games, there appears to be a troll who is intentionally joining games and ruining them by running out the clock.
Their reputation is 0% and they have 12 leave penalties in 34 recent games, all of them on the first turn. One penalty is on a game I'm trying to play (La Granja). In this current game, this user passed the first step of their first turn (a very suboptimal move) and used a time joker, so we won't be able to do anything for 6 days.

Even if this particular instance isn't trolling, it is possible for users to troll BGA by queuing for several turn based games with no intention of actually playing, then using a time joker maliciously to keep all of the games active. Since someone trolling this way would never finish a game, as in the case above, they are still flagged as a beginner, so they cannot be reported and red thumbs can only be given as a personal opinion.

I appreciate how careful the site is in not punishing players who may not be ruining games in bad faith, but I think there should be a way to handle this kind of trolling on a community basis.

edit: grammar

I get your point and trolling can be very frustrating.

paramesis wrote: ↑11 May 2020, 18:57 The user interface could be more clear when queuing for a game that you are still in the queue and will be placed in a game even if you leave the page.

Absolutely agreed.

Regarding the way to handle this, it is exactly what the reputation filter is for. And as far as I know, the highest filter option is 85% so you actually can exclude beginners. Maybe the default reputation option shouldn't be "allow anyone" but ">40%" or so.

I rarely play turn-based games but as far as I know there is an upper limit of turn-based games you can play simultaneously based on how many turn-based games you already finished. Something like only after one finished game can you play two games simultaneously, only after two finished games can you play 3 games simultaneously, etc. So there is already a mechanism that at least limits trolling players.

dschingis27 wrote: ↑12 May 2020, 09:18 I rarely play turn-based games but as far as I know there is an upper limit of turn-based games you can play simultaneously based on how many turn-based games you already finished. Something like only after one finished game can you play two games simultaneously, only after two finished games can you play 3 games simultaneously, etc. So there is already a mechanism that at least limits trolling players.

There may have been at some point, but not now. I've been queuing up La Granja all week and I'm now in 7 active games, most of which are likely never going to get past the first farm phase. Until yesterday evening, I've never been able to finish a turn based game, and that was a Can't Stop tournament yesterday.

The reputation filter might also have allowed more restrictive options at some point as well, but I can only set it as high as 75%

EDIT: I can see now that the 85% reputation filter is available in manual table setup, but not automatic.

I'm not necessarily trying to exclude beginners. I'm a beginner myself in several heavy games I'd love to try here in a turn-based format. I would only want to exclude people who have no intention of ever taking a turn.

I don't think most of the people abandoning/ruining games are doing so on purpose. Many cases seem to be people who just created an account and are exploring the platform, clicked play, then turn-based (since most board games are "turn-based") then clicked a game box, then left after a timer came up. They might have just been exploring the platform without wanting to actually play a game, and may never log in again. It's not clear at all to newcomers that doing this will end up ruining a game, or that leaving a turn-based setup page with a timer will not cancel automatch.

There should be some kind of expanded view of game information, queue explanation, and options when you click the game box, rather than immediately starting automatch. It's natural to expect something like that because there is a separate "play now" button. More importantly, it should take an additional deliberate step to stay in a turn-based queue after leaving a page.

I never played on turn by turn, but that seem very anti-community, just give them a lot of weekends of penalty.

Maybe a option that if you are less then 45%, you can't activate it.

I don't use it, if I do something not good, I assume it.