How can I avoid auto-joiners?

[bvibum]

Is anyone else tired of creating a fast turn based game and constantly getting auto-join opponents? I would assume if someone creates a fast turn based game they want to actually PLAY. I am way too often in Azul and 7 Wonders Duel getting auto-joiners who aren’t even online and often don’t play for hours. Is there a work around for this? Sometimes I just want to play and I end up with a game that just sits there forever. Many times the player gets timed out. Doesn’t seem fair to me, who wants to play, or the opponent, who doesn’t even know they joined a game.

[Meeplelowda]

Is there a work around for this?

Why isn't a real-time game the work around?

[Blacktango]

If you set the table to fast turn-base and the players stick to their allotted time (= timer is still positive), you have nothing to blame them for.
If you think it is still too slow, you can to switch to real-time play instead.

If their timer is negative, you can ask them to play faster, and eventually give them a red thumb to avoid them in the future.

[Cile]

If you set the table to fast turn-base and the players stick to their allotted time (= timer is still positive), you have nothing to blame them for.
If you think it is still too slow, you can to switch to real-time play instead.

If their timer is negative, you can ask them to play faster, and eventually give them a red thumb to avoid them in the future.

I've had similar issues lately. I've been trying to get a turn-based game of Splendor going and been having a hell of a time getting past 3 turns.

The first game I created was exactly as OP described. Filled right away with auto-joiners, and then not a single turn was played as the first played never even logged in until their 3 day time bank was used up.

So no, they aren't playing within their allotted time. As OP said:

Many times the player gets timed out.

If it happened rarely then sure, red thumb and avoid in the future would be fine. I've had 3 games of Splendor in a row where my opponent has timed out over 3 days within the first 3 turns of the game. So I've spent almost 2 weeks trying to get a single game going and it's getting ridiculous.

Not every game has this problem. I've been trying a bunch of different games and haven't had this issue since playing Beyond the Sun. Some games for some reason attract a crowd of people who don't pay attention to turn limits when joining tables. It seems to happen with games that require a premium account to start, perhaps non-premium members are trying to jump on any table they can and aren't paying attention to the table settings. The problem with that is they still don't end up getting to play if they get kicked for running out of time, and now they'll have a harder time joining premium games in the future as the game creator has likely blocked them from joining future tables of theirs.

For me it's getting to the point that I want a setting to restrict tables to "premium users only" so that I know anyone who joins wants to play with the settings I've set, otherwise they could just create their own table.

Why isn't a real-time game the work around?

Because these are the speed settings OP is comfortable playing with.

When someone joins a table and doesn't play within the turn limits of the table they joined it's not the fault of the table creator for not picking different speed settings.

As for solutions, with Beyond the Sun I was able to avoid such players once I started playing in the Arena, but for a new game you need to get 100 ELO first before you can do that. The only other suggestion I can make is set karma restrictions as very restrictive (75%+) to try to weed out players who make a habit of doing this.

[Meeplelowda]

OP said "I would assume if someone creates a fast turn based game they want to actually PLAY.." Their complaint is that people aren't actively playing immediately upon the game filling as if it were a real-time game. What they really want is a game that starts when *they* join, like a real-time game, but has the slower time control of a turn-based game.

Part of the trade-off of turn-based games is that not everyone is necessarily sitting around their computer or clutching their mobile device waiting for the game to start, even for fast turn-based. The issue of people timing out universally applies to all formats whether real-time or fast or slow turned-based. And the way to deal with it is the same: at your discretion you can expel them and red thumb them. As you suggest, you can also add the strongest karma filter available to stop being paired with habitual laggards in the first place.

[nik592]

The other thing is that this is not necessarily an issue of auto-joiners, who likely make up a good portion of the site. Even as a premium member, I can rarely step straight into the game I want - mostly, I create tables per the settings I like and wait for people to join. Very occasionally, I find a table with reasonable settings, and join that one, but at least half or more of the time, I have to wait there too for the table to fill. I don't use auto-join for anything except Arena (which obviously doesn't allow manual join). But I do my waiting off BGA generally, so I'm often not there when the table starts (I do get back well within turn times though).

Having seen what some of my RL friends have done with BGA, in that they start a game with me, and then they kind of go back to normal life and forget they ever joined BGA and never return. And when I ask them, they say, oh yes, I forgot about that, shrug and conclude it's probably not for them. Which is fine - I just move on to other players, but I suspect there's plenty of other people out there who do similar. I agree it's frustrating when you can't get a game going for some time and after several attempts, but I don't think there's a category on which you can exclude those people (although premium is probably a good indicator, if you're paying for BGA, one assumes you're somewhat committed).

[PegasusDragon1]

You know how if you DON'T have premium (or even if you do) you set your parameters and then wait for a table? If your parameters are very specific, or an unpopular game, it may take hours. You can't expect someone to stare at BGA for hours, or even minutes straight for that matter, especially for a turn based game.