This game has more quitters than any game here BY FAR!

[PegasusDragon1]

Doesn’t matter if it’s a tournament, normal game, or even slow or fast turn-based, most of my recent Heat games has at least one person time out and the race ends. Sometimes I start a few at once (correctly) assuming at least a few will just time out.

[RazorOz]

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34457

Some tips:

Tournaments should be better as long as you're avoiding the obvious trap tournaments with ridiculous clocks where it's obvious every game will time out before it begins. Anything that is multiplayer (which is pretty much every tournament at Heat), that has game rounds set to less than 30 days will end in tears. Any Championship tournament will end in tears, as it's pretty much impossible to complete Championships in 30 days in an open field. Real-time is a waste of time, it never works. I could probably make a whole separate thread about tournaments given the number of people who DM me asking about them, there's a few other more subtle things relating to structure, but those are the 3 most stand out traps.

Arena has less quitters

Red thumb blatant quitters

Change your settings in search, filter for >75% reputation, untick beginners/apprentices. Like 80% of quitters are beginners/apprentices (this is also likely a good part of why Arena has less quitters as beginners/apprentices can't play).

[Injured Pigeon]

I had a similar experience when initially playing Heat. Avoiding the tournaments Oz mentioned and switching to Arena solved the problems. I now only play turn based too (not for the same reason) and I haven't had a game where someone quit for a long time.

[arrie1987]

Indeed.
Double check the settings for a tournament. Some are too funny with 7 players withing 7 days for example. It is already taking half the time to choose the upgrades then if you are lucky!

Red thumb people you want to avoid who are not playing.

Play arena is indeed helping.

I mostly try to avoid swiss tournaments, or i play with known people. Swiss tournament always goes on,even with people who did not log in for ages.
Elimination games tournaments are better (especially for heat), as non playing players are gone after round 1 or 2 mostly.

[RazorOz]

Yes, to add on tournament structure, look at how long a tournament is going to take roughly, like I think Swiss is fine if used sensibly, but if a tournament is listed at 40 rounds, it's just too long, that's saying the tournament is going to take 3 years to complete, many players will lose interest long before the end. Something like the upcoming The Slog https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=337886 is using Swiss sensibly, and I know from the player running it they want to create a smooth tournament, that sort of length is also the max I'd really want to look at, because another issue Swiss faces is it's a system that's very easy for players to lose interest in (when they can no longer qualify/win).

On round robin's be aware what you are actually getting into. The issue with these is many players don't seem to realise how they work, and that the tournament will put you in a lot of 2 player games simultaneously, which then they realise they don't want to be in an extra 14 turn based games.

Another thing that gets missed a lot is what mode a tournament actually is. It's very easy to get misled by the Championship options being at the bottom, no matter what mode is selected. What matters is what mode is selected which is towards the top of the options. If it's standard, that means it's one-off races, and the Championship settings are irrelevant, if it's Championship then it is a Championship, but like I say these don't work, because the max round time is 30 days, and it's effectively impossible to complete Championship rounds in 30 days in an open field. One race rounds tend to take about 10-20 days, so there's no chance you will complete 4 race Championships in 30 days unless you hand pick all the players.