[[Discussion]] Handling Players Who "Abandon" Swiss Tournaments Without Withdrawing

[Meeplelowda]

Problem: Someone enters a Swiss tournament, but stops playing entirely after a couple losses. It's not that they are away from BGA. They are literally playing dozens of other turn-based games. They simply won't make moves on the tournament games. If their opponent doesn't expel the player because the opponent thinks they are being "nice" without fully examining what's going on, there are two consequences: 1) the player isn't taking any karma penalties for behavior that's disrupting the tournament, and 2) each round goes to max time for no reason.

What's the big deal you say? For one, if there are an odd number of players in the tournament, there's effectively an extra "bye" that shouldn't be there and a spot being taken that the player with the real bye (the one chosen by BGA) could have played in to accrue additional opponents' points in the Swiss tie breaker. [I'm talking about this from the perspective of 2p games.]

I haven't worked out what the impact is when there are an even number of players, but it must mess with the overall score somehow as well.

Is this behavior that is somehow now incentivised by awarding XP for "finishing" a tournament? If so, I think it's an unintended consequence.

I don't have a fleshed out idea how to fix it, which is why there's not yet a link to a report in the bugs/suggestions database.

[RazorOz]

Either needs an option for tournament admin to boot players from a tournament or if someone is timed out/booted say 2 rounds in a row, they are automatically booted from the tournament. Would also help if more games were fixed around the handling of booted players to begin with.

[Meeplelowda]

needs an option for tournament admin to boot players from a tournament

I would love to have this option, but obviously it's ripe for abuse so they are never going to give that power to random people creating public tournaments. Maaaaaaybe they'd allow it for private tournaments. I'm guessing that for official tournaments sponsored by the game publisher problematic players can be removed at the publisher's request.

or if someone is timed out/booted say 2 rounds in a row, they are automatically booted from the tournament.

Something like this might be more acceptable to them.

Would also help if more games were fixed around the handling of booted players to begin with.

I don't complain about this because I know dealing with this falls on the shoulders of devs, and not every game has a straightforward way to handle it like Heat. I meant it's straightforward in how a game like Heat should continue once a player gets expelled, not that it was straightforward to implement it. In many game it would be both difficult to decide a fair way to continue with the game and difficult to code it, especially if the game wasn't developed with this in mind to begin with and you are trying to retrofit it.

[nik592]

I would love to have this option, but obviously it's ripe for abuse so they are never going to give that power to random people creating public tournaments. Maaaaaaybe they'd allow it for private tournaments.

I'm not sure I understand this. Yes, I can see where an overzealous admin might decide they're going to boot people beating them, etc. But I feel like if you're creating a tournament, you kind of set the rules. If you set poor rules, people won't want to play with you. I guess it's not always easy to remember the tournament admin who did unfair bootings.

I'm not sure I agree with the other option to automatically boot anyone who times out 2 rounds in a row - I'd have been booted from several of the tournaments I played in, and I was actively playing, just poorly placed in turn ordering compared to playing times of my opponents. Maybe in conjunction? Admins can remove players who are timing out multiple times in a row? Maybe other players can nominate a player to be removed from a tournament (based on timeouts/bootings) and the admin can just approve it? Maybe not base it on people who have timed out, but people who haven't played in the tournament for a set number of days (eg. if you have active games but haven't been active in the tournament for five days, then you're removed)?

[Mathew5000]

Yes, I was thinking about posting on this topic in the other current thread, "Most wanted updates to tournaments". This would be at the top of my list, measures to deal with players who are either absent or too slow. (I know that's not exactly the same as the specific issue you raised in this thread, Meeplelowda, but I see it as all part of the same problem and susceptible to the same or similar solutions.)

I started a thread last year — viewtopic.php?t=40083 — and I was intending to raise a formal proposal based on the discussion in that thread but I never did.

Here's my current thinking on solutions. These are, I believe, good solutions which could work individually or in combination with each other. Also these are proposed with turn-based tournaments in mind. I have not given any thought to whether or not these would also be good for real-time tournaments.

(a) You lose karma points if you exceed your time allotment in a tournament game, whether or not another player skips your turn.

(b) If you exceed your time limit in a tournament game by more than 50% (e.g. the allotment is 5 days and you have gone 2.5 days into the red in a single game) then you are kicked out of the tournament when the current game ends (the same as if you had clicked the Withdraw button on the tournament page). This would be a universal rule, not something that the tournament creator would have an option for.

(c) If over the course of the tournament you have exceeded your allotment by a cumulative total that is greater than the allotment itself, you are kicked out of the tournament when the current game ends (as if you had clicked the Withdraw button). This also would be a universal rule, not something at the option of the tournament creator. Example: The tournament allotment is 5 days. In game 1 you use 7 days (2 days over); in game 2 you use 3 days (within your time limit); in game 3 you use 6.5 days (1.5 days over); and in game 4 you use 6.75 days (1.75 days over). You would be deemed to have clicked the Withdraw button during game 4 as soon as you exceeded 5 days of cumulative overtime. (You do not get "credit" for having been undertime in game 2.)

(d) When the tournament is created, the creator has an option of how many overtime games will cause a player to be withdrawn from the tournament. The default would be 2, and the tournament creator could change that to 1, 3, or 4. Here, it's the number of games in which you go overtime that matters, not the amount of time. If the creator has specified 1 game, and you've played the first six games within your time limit but then in game 7 you exceed your time by any amount, even 1 second, then it's as if you clicked Withdraw.

(e) If the tournament creator has red-thumbed you, you cannot enter the tournament. (However, if you have already registered for the tournament and then the tournament creator red-thumbs you, you can play the tournament.)

This thread is about Swiss tournaments, and the above five proposals are mainly intended for Swiss tournaments, but I think they would also work in other types, especially multiplayer-elimination. In single-player elimination, I'm not sure what happens (at present) if a player clicks withdraw during a game, and then proceeds to win the game. Brackets are already set at the start of the tournament. Presumably the winning player who withdrew does not advance, so does the losing player advance and play in the next round? Or is it a bye for the other player in the next round? And in round-robin tournaments, I have observed that the Withdraw button does not work properly. I guess that should be fixed because some of my proposals above are made with reference to the Withdraw button.

Of the five proposals, I guess if (b) and (d) are implemented then (c) would be almost redundant. In retrospect I like (c) the least of the five, because it's hard to explain and might be hard to code. In devising (b), I mainly want to get at the situation where someone in a tournament has left BGA (maybe injured or deceased, or maybe just got bored of it) but they are still placed in game after game of a Swiss tournament, ruining several games for other players. I believe my proposal (b) would knock out of the tournament any player in that situation, but it would not catch a player who just goes a bit overtime because of time-zone incompatibility or some minor delay. I like proposal (d) a lot, because it gives the tournament creator the option of saying, that there will either be zero-tolerance for exceeding your time, or there will be a little tolerance (the default: you can exceed your time allotment in one game and continue to play in the tournament, but not two games), or the tournament creator can stipulate a lot of tolerance (three or four overtime games before you're out of the tournament). I believe however, that if (d) is implemented then either (b) or (c) should also be implemented.

As for (a), I think it's self-evident that there should always be at least a little karma penalty for not making your moves within the time limit. And concerning (e), I'm not sure whether that will be controversial. When I notice someone has exceeded their time by a significant amount I give them a red thumb, and I think it would improve matters if they were not allowed to register in future tournaments I create. If I gave them a red thumb for a different reason, well, I still probably don't want them in my tournament. It seems reasonable to me.

[FSKFSK]

I thought there was a rule that, if someone times out in a Swiss tournament game, they're kicked from the tournament? Or that only happens if they run out of time AND their karma drops below a certain threshold?

The karma penalty for timing out of a tournament game is too low. For some reason, it's -4 instead of -10 or -20. Also, tournament karma probably should be tracked separately than regular karma. If someone gets a -10 penalty, they can just play 10 quick games and get back to 100%.

This is why I don't play Swiss tournaments, and prefer multiplayer elimination. If 10%-20% of the Swiss field times out, and the rule is "you can't play someone twice", then the absent players wind up polluting the whole tournament. In multiplayer elimination, the slow players get knocked out after the first round or two, and then you can have high confidence of finishing games.

[Mathew5000]

I thought there was a rule that, if someone times out in a Swiss tournament game, they're kicked from the tournament?

No, that is not a rule.

Or that only happens if they run out of time AND their karma drops below a certain threshold?

I'm not exactly sure, but I don't think this is a rule. Or if it is, then the threshold is very low. I did make this formal proposal last year: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=149548 (currently 5 upvotes)

The karma penalty for timing out of a tournament game is too low. For some reason, it's -4 instead of -10 or -20.

Is it? I was under the impression that there was no karma penalty for exceeding your time, unless another player skips your turn. I could well be incorrect about that.

[FSKFSK]

If you run out of time but don't get skipped, it's -1 karma. If you run out of time and get skipped, it's -4 for a tournament game and -10 for a non-tournament game.

You get +1 karma for every finished game. It's easy to get out of any karma penalty by playing a bunch of quick games.

[nik592]

Is it? I was under the impression that there was no karma penalty for exceeding your time, unless another player skips your turn. I could well be incorrect about that.

They mean if you are booted. You are correct that there is no penalty (anywhere) for just going over time. For tournaments, boot penalty is 4 karma instead of 10-20 karma for normal settings. I have assumed this is because timing is a lot less forgiving in tournament mode due to being fixed time instead of time per turn. I regularly go over time in tournaments, despite my being on BGA several times per day (during waking hours). I almost never do in regular play. Some of the solutions proposed here would boot me out, even though I haven't abandoned the tournament at all.

If you run out of time but don't get skipped, it's -1 karma.

I don't believe this is correct. I've never received any penalty for running over time, nor has anyone I know. In fact, the fact that time penalties don't give you karma penalties was discussed at length during the debate over allowing games with no time limit and ELO adjustments (previously allowed only between friends). People said the solution was play at the slowest speed and if you get time penalties, so what? It doesn't hurt your rep.

[Mathew5000]

Here's my current thinking on solutions. These are, I believe, good solutions which could work individually or in combination with each other. Also these are proposed with turn-based tournaments in mind. I have not given any thought to whether or not these would also be good for real-time tournaments.

(a) You lose karma points if you exceed your time allotment in a tournament game, whether or not another player skips your turn.

Compare https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=45839 (currently 5 upvotes), which would apply to any game, not only tournament games, and it specifies minus 1 karma for every overtime whereas I think it should be something like minus five.

(b) If you exceed your time limit in a tournament game by more than 50% (e.g. the allotment is 5 days and you have gone 2.5 days into the red in a single game) then you are kicked out of the tournament when the current game ends (the same as if you had clicked the Withdraw button on the tournament page). This would be a universal rule, not something that the tournament creator would have an option for.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. I don't see any formal proposal along these lines in BGA's official bug/proposal system so I plan to make one.

(e) If the tournament creator has red-thumbed you, you cannot enter the tournament. (However, if you have already registered for the tournament and then the tournament creator red-thumbs you, you can play the tournament.)

I think I will propose this as well. It is sufficiently different from https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=43968 ("Tournament admins should be allowed to remove players before the tournament starts"), in my opinion.