Board Game Arena

Dear Editor,

Something that I've come across recently in just TM is that anywhere between the 1st-5th generation is that my opponent just up and leaves. Happened in my last 2 games with no response.

Calling out [redacted] and [redacted].

Is a thumb down the only remedy there is? Looking back on both of their game histories it is their habit.

Sincerely,
Frustrated in Syracuse

First: Name-and-shame is against the forum rules.

Second: Part of the reason for it being against the rules is false or incorrect reporting, which seems to be happening here. When I look up the first person you named, they have a flawless record for their last 60 games. Are you certain that this is the right person, and that this wasn't a Friendly game? Friendly games can be quit at any time.

The other person you're talking about has a horrible record. To avoid players like him, change your game preferences so that you don't get paired with people who have a bad reputation. Even a Permissive (which will not pair you with people below a 50% rating unless it can't find another opponent in a fairly long time) reputation restriction would have avoided playing against him.

To change your permissions, go to the Play page, and set Simple Game, Real-Time, Automatic. Once those are set, the games you've favorited will be arranged with your ranking and a gear mark. Click on the gear, and you'll get settings on how you want to play the game. Click on Show Advanced Options, and then Reputation will be the second item on the list.

You'll need to make that change for every game you play.

Edit: Looking at your game history, you have three Terraforming Mars games today. All of these games are in Friendly mode.

First: Thanks for the reminder. I have edited them out.

Second: If you look up the person with the "perfect" history, their history of TM games reflects what I was referring to. Their TM games are littered with 1-0 scores with them as the zero similar to the other person I was referring to with the low karma rating.

What difference does it make that it is a friendly game? It has to be in order to play with Prelude. The intentional and purposeful act of quitting of a game because you perceive you have a less than optimal hand, or whatever reason there may be is just poor etiquette and a crappy attitude in life.

My 3rd game that I played I was getting creamed by Ecoline, but I didn't just up and quit. I soldiered on and ended up winning.

Friendly Mode is why there's no consequence for leaving. It's one of the few ways to do that.

Friendly Mode does three things: 1.) No ELO ranking, 2.) No turn time limit, and 3.) No penalty for leaving.

Why the latter? There's a dozen reasons, but one from left field, especially relevant for Prelude: It's a good way to test out opening strategies without having to play full games.

Prelude is Friendly-Only as long as it's in Alpha. They're still bug-testing.

Edit: For what it's worth, I vastly prefer Terraforming Mars with Prelude, but as long as it's in Alpha, I'm still not using it here.

I have not had any issues with leaving across dozens of games -- but I'm not playing friendly games, I'm playing ranked. And also restrict to >50% karma.

@nekojin - Want to test out opening hands? Do a solo game and save the actual players from frustration.

@ brh2113 - In this case, the person had 100% karma. There was way to know without delving into their game history logs. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Yup I've noticed that a lot of rated games end early because a guy leaves the game when he is clearly losing

Can't blame it that much though, at gen 5 when you know you lose it's 45-60 minutes more to play when you know there is no point, but still it should be punished...

Play plenty TFM games, haven't seen anyone leaving, as in not playing and not conceding.
Although I play fast turn-based and don't eject people for timing out as long as they're still making an effort.

What further "punishment" do you expect beyond existing karma penalties and the individual thumbs-down you can give to any player at any time for any reason?
Sure, it sucks if the game ends in the middle, but you can't force people to play when they don't want to.

So just happened again.... They had 97% karma and just up and left during the 5th generation. Looking back on their history, they did the same thing in the last 6 out of 9 TM games.

@Bringer: I dunno, perhaps some site restrictions if the person is a chronic abuser as shown in that player's history? At least they have the courtesy of conceding, for whatever that brings.

Stop playing friendly mode.

Prelude is in alpha, meaning you are playing as a playtester, not the full release, as such, it's friendly mode for testing purposes.