Hello everyone! A situation in a game of Terra Mystica I had just played left me frustrated with how the platform deals with quitters, and I figured I'd offer a suggestion. Here was the table for context: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=147210451
As you can see, the game was at its absolute end (only finishing moves were left) and I was guaranteed to win, even if I had passed without doing anything else. As a silver player who beat 2 gold players and 1 silver player, this would have promoted me to gold league. However, the player in last quit at the last second, nullifying the entire game.
I feel that it is unfair to everyone involved to have a game that is essentially finished nullified by force. Along with missing a league promotion (only receiving 1 promotion point instead of 5), I also had 0 change in ELO. If the other remaining players were rated lower, I could have even lost ELO for coming in first!
My suggestion is as follows. First, in the case of someone leaving, floor ELO changes at 0 for the remaining players to prevent players from paying for another's mistakes. Second, an option should be given (by unanimous remaining player vote) to still get rating points/ELO for "nullified" games if the game is nullified in the last ~20% of the match. In this case, the players who stayed in the game would receive ELO/promotion points equal to one of the actual game values if it were to finish, and the nullified game values, which ever is better/greater. That way such a situation as experienced in the table above would not occur, and players who stayed until the end of the game would not be punished.
I'd love to hear others thoughts on this!
As you can see, the game was at its absolute end (only finishing moves were left) and I was guaranteed to win, even if I had passed without doing anything else. As a silver player who beat 2 gold players and 1 silver player, this would have promoted me to gold league. However, the player in last quit at the last second, nullifying the entire game.
I feel that it is unfair to everyone involved to have a game that is essentially finished nullified by force. Along with missing a league promotion (only receiving 1 promotion point instead of 5), I also had 0 change in ELO. If the other remaining players were rated lower, I could have even lost ELO for coming in first!
My suggestion is as follows. First, in the case of someone leaving, floor ELO changes at 0 for the remaining players to prevent players from paying for another's mistakes. Second, an option should be given (by unanimous remaining player vote) to still get rating points/ELO for "nullified" games if the game is nullified in the last ~20% of the match. In this case, the players who stayed in the game would receive ELO/promotion points equal to one of the actual game values if it were to finish, and the nullified game values, which ever is better/greater. That way such a situation as experienced in the table above would not occur, and players who stayed until the end of the game would not be punished.
I'd love to hear others thoughts on this!
