abuse time limit

[T_ROGE]

Situation:
- we are in a 4p catan game
- during the starting placement the orange player takes very long to choose his initial settlement and has a negative time count (-1min)
- however, no one ended the game
- the orange player plays with a negative time count the whole game (between 0 and -1min)
- he is not playing super slow and no one complains about it
- the game continues with the orange player playing with a negative time count the whole game
- I am about to win the game: 9 points for me, <5 points for each of my opponents
- just the turn before I will win (everyone knows I'll win next turn), the white player kicks orange player out of the game
- at the moment the white player kicks the orange player out of the game, he had himself a negative time count (!)
- the game ends in a draw and I score 0 points
- the white player (he has a low ranking) scored a lot of points by obtaining a draw against me (higher rated)

Is this acceptable behavior from the white player?
- White player played the whole game without making a problem about the time limit and than ended the game just before I could win.
- I gave the white player a public red flag, cause he abused the time limit to obtain ELO points in a unjustified matter. Is that ok or should I do more?

PS 1: In all transparency. I told in the chat that this is a pathetic way to score points and that he should try play more intelligent instead to gain ELO points. So I am also a bit in the wrong, don't want to hide that.
PS 2: The orange player is not really in the wrong here. He was a beginner player and except for the initial placement didn't slow down the game.

[Meeplelowda]

Is this acceptable behavior from the white player?

If by "acceptable" you mean honorable and a display of good sportsmanship, then obviously no. You are perfectly justified in never wanting to associate with that player again, and the red thumb achieves that.

If by "acceptable" you mean violating no rules or terms of use/service and thus not reportable, then yes, it is acceptable.

[T_ROGE]

ok thanks.

[Shobu]

what a miserable move ...
red thumb and pray for never meet that kind of player again ..

[RobertBr]

- just the turn before I will win (everyone knows I'll win next turn), the white player kicks orange player out of the game
- at the moment the white player kicks the orange player out of the game, he had himself a negative time count (!)
- the game ends in a draw and I score 0 points
- the white player (he has a low ranking) scored a lot of points by obtaining a draw against me (higher rated)

Is this acceptable behavior from the white player?

Yes. Unequivocally yes. This is a very well known and commonly used clocking tactic in multi-player games on BGA. You may not enjoy it, you may believe you would behave differently in the same situation but the person has used the rules to score the most points, which is definitely okay. No-one has come up with a better way to handle it so we are stuck with the rules the way they are. The best that is possible is for you to give a private red thumb so you are not paired in casual games with this person.

PS 1: In all transparency. I told in the chat that this is a pathetic way to score points and that he should try play more intelligent instead to gain ELO points. So I am also a bit in the wrong, don't want to hide that.

Just to be clear this is absolutely not acceptable behaviour. You clearly violated site rules and the player you said this to could have chosen to report you and get a penalty applied to you for what you said in the chat. If they did not do that it suggests they were being quite reasonable, as any player using this tactic almost certainly knows they can report you. So, as the rules of the site go, you broke them, the other player did not. You might feel there is wrong on both sides but as far as the rules of the site go, its all you in the wrong.

I understand the frustration but unless you can think of a set of rules that would avoid this that is the way it is.

[T72on1]

Both the answers of RobertBr and that of Meeplelowda are correct, strictly speaking. I prefer the latter though, since it is the most nuanced one.

[T_ROGE]

I understand the frustration but unless you can think of a set of rules that would avoid this that is the way it is.

What about allowing players to start every turn with a clock of at least a few seconds. This way if someone goes very negative in the time count in turn 1 of the game but everyone decides they are ok with continuing then they cannot "reverse" this decision just before the game is about to end, unless off course the player 'again' takes too long for his turn. It's simple: either you are ok to continue playing, either you are not. Both are fine, but you should not be able to continue play for a whole game and then still end the game just before the last turn. I think resetting a negative clock to (slightly above) 0 after every turn would achieve this. What do you think about that proposal?

[SwHawk]

Players should already get some extra time at the end of their turn, the quantity depends on the speed of the game. This may or may not be enough to return to a positive role and also may or may not be enough to prevent the player from going overtime as well...

What you've encountered is entirely different. What I mean is that the opponent who chose to expel the out of time player did so to win the most points... If that was clear they weren't going to win, expelling the other player would mean they would draw with you and win against the expelled player, which probably has resulted in a lower ELO loss than losing against you...

Mind you I'm not condoning what that player did, just bringing facts

[T_ROGE]

Just to be clear this is absolutely not acceptable behavior. You clearly violated site rules and the player you said this to could have chosen to report you and get a penalty applied to you for what you said in the chat. If they did not do that it suggests they were being quite reasonable, as any player using this tactic almost certainly knows they can report you. So, as the rules of the site go, you broke them, the other player did not. You might feel there is wrong on both sides but as far as the rules of the site go, its all you in the wrong.

I understand the frustration but unless you can think of a set of rules that would avoid this that is the way it is.

This got me thinking: indeed strange that he didn't report me, it would indeed makes more sense he did.

So I went to take another look at the logs of the game. There were 4 players:
- purple player - me
- orange player - the player who violated the clock in turn 1 but played reasonable for the rest of the game
- white player - the player who was ok to continue playing, but waited till the last turn to end the game and score a lot of points
- blue player - I didn't notice anything strange about him during the game, but I remember orange accused him of conspiring with the white player

I noticed that white and blue are f'riends' and that they played already multiple catan games together. A quick scan of the logs of the game reveals they never robbed each other. My suspicion is that he didn't report me because he knows he is violating the rules himself by playing collaborative with his friend. I am inclined to give a red thumb to the blue player as well.

[T_ROGE]

Players should already get some extra time at the end of their turn, the quantity depends on the speed of the game. This may or may not be enough to return to a positive role and also may or may not be enough to prevent the player from going overtime as well...

What you've encountered is entirely different. What I mean is that the opponent who chose to expel the out of time player did so to win the most points... If that was clear they weren't going to win, expelling the other player would mean they would draw with you and win against the expelled player, which probably has resulted in a lower ELO loss than losing against you...

Mind you I'm not condoning what that player did, just bringing facts

Exactly. The white player scored a lot of points by waiting till the end of the game to get a draw against me, cause the game had a completion rate of almost 100%. If he kicked the orange player at the moment his clock went strongly negative he would not have gained so much points, cause the game had a completion rate of less than 10% at that moment. So I think that if we just bring the clock every time back to (slightly above) 0 then this would not have been possible. Either white had kicked the orange player at the beginning of the game or either he did not, but he couldn't have waited till the end of the game to kick him, cause the clock of orange would have been positive again, as he played at a reasonable pace the whole game except for turn 1.