Board Game Arena

This whole system is designed to discourage and heavily penalize players who need to drop out of a game in progress. Which is all well and good, but it means there is little or no discussion or advice on what to do if you really do have to drop out. It is going to happen to me more than most other players because I volunteer for the local fire department, and every now and then will have to respond to some crisis in our local community. So what is the best way to handle that situation when it comes up.

I had identified the "Concede Game" option and thought that would be the best way out. But when the I really needed to do it, the server rejected that request. The quit game option worked after warning me that quitting would bring down a penalty in both reputation and ELO points. Which is OK. I knew that that was a risk I would be taking, especially if I'm playing a 2 person game with a new low ranked player, and just accept that as the price one pays for always being on-call.

What bothered me about the final result was that my opponent did not collect the expected windfall they should have gotten from winning a game against a high ranked player. Instead, the system calculated that the game was only 22% completed when I had to bail out. So they apparently only got 22% of the ELO points they should have gotten. I'm guessing that logic is there to prevent unscrupulous players from boosting their own score by playing against phantom players who quit immediately. But it seems really unfair for a new player playing against a well established player. It shouldn't be too hard add some checks that will separate out real players from phantom ones.

There are two ways to leave a game without taking a karma penalty: Concede and Abandon.

Concede was designed to allow a player in a losing position to grant the victory to the other player in a 2-player game, and therefore save time. However, it was decided that one cannot really determine if they are in a losing position if less than half the game has been played. Therefore, concede will only work once the game progress has reached 50%. By your example, it looks like only 22% of the game had been finished, which is why you couldn't concede.
One advantage of conceding is that it only requires one person to determine that they want to leave the game. The system treats it as a loss for the person conceding, and a win for the other person (with full ELO and ranking adjustment). Concede can only be used in 2-player games.

The other way to leave a game in progress is to collectively Abandon the game. This was designed to allow players to leave the table if something more important than finishing the game was happening. Such events like a bug preventing normal play, people realizing the game isn't to their liking, or a fire breaking out It is accessed from the same menu that has the concede option. It can be done at any point in the game (regardless of game progress) and with any number of players. However, all active players must agree to the abandon. If even one player wants the game to continue, it will. But, if all players agree to abandon, the system treats it as if the game never existed: no ELO is adjusted, win/loss stays the same, etc.

In the situation you are in, where you know you can be called away at a moment's notice, I would make it a practice to let the other players know this as soon as the table starts. Keep a short message in your clipboard and paste it when the table loads (or even when still in the lobby, before everyone has agreed to play). If they are willing to take the risk of you leaving, well and good. Otherwise the game can be abandoned there, with only the lobby wait time being invested in the game. Then, if you do get called, people won't be shocked at a request to abandon, and are more likely to agree.

I think there is also the option to switch to turn by turn mode at any moment. Of course the opponents have to accept, but as Jest said, if you mention it before, they will probably agree.