Board Game Arena

It seems like in at least 80% of the games I play, I get at least one opponent who is slow enough that the game says "This Player Is Not Playing, What Can I Do?" I can't decide if this is because the site is overly picky about how long/short a turn should take, or if there are just a lot of slow players here.

As someone who is a naturally fast-paced player, I find this frustrating. As soon as I take my turn, my brain has started figuring out what I'm going to do next and sitting around waiting can be aggravating, especially in games where you might need 2-3 moves to make real progress.

Anyone else experience this?

MysteryGuy1 wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 15:39 It seems like in at least 80% of the games I play, I get at least one opponent who is slow enough that the game says "This Player Is Not Playing, What Can I Do?" I can't decide if this is because the site is overly picky about how long/short a turn should take, or if there are just a lot of slow players here.

As someone who is a naturally fast-paced player, I find this frustrating. As soon as I take my turn, my brain has started figuring out what I'm going to do next and sitting around waiting can be aggravating, especially in games where you might need 2-3 moves to make real progress.

Anyone else experience this?

in my games, it always says, "This player is not playing; what can I do?" regardless of how frequently the opponent is making moves.

FrankJones wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 16:47in my games, it always says, "This player is not playing; what can I do?" regardless of how frequently the opponent is making moves.

You'd think this would be considered a glitch in the site, no? To me, at least, it seems to give a false illusion of people taking too long, even when they aren't. It adds an unnecessary level of stress.

MysteryGuy1 wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 17:58

FrankJones wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 16:47in my games, it always says, "This player is not playing; what can I do?" regardless of how frequently the opponent is making moves.

You'd think this would be considered a glitch in the site, no? To me, at least, it seems to give a false illusion of people taking too long, even when they aren't. It adds an unnecessary level of stress.

Each player's clock is visible. If the player has plenty of clock left, it means the player is not moving slowly.

I think that link is there mostly for telling people (A) who think that the other player (B) is too slow that in fact they (B) are not too slow, and they're playing in time, and if they (A) don't like it, they can choose a different time setting next time. Since everyone has a different opinion on what "too slow" means, the link is there the whole time.

MysteryGuy1 wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 15:39 It seems like in at least 80% of the games I play, I get at least one opponent who is slow enough that the game says "This Player Is Not Playing, What Can I Do?" I can't decide if this is because the site is overly picky about how long/short a turn should take, or if there are just a lot of slow players here.

As someone who is a naturally fast-paced player, I find this frustrating. As soon as I take my turn, my brain has started figuring out what I'm going to do next and sitting around waiting can be aggravating, especially in games where you might need 2-3 moves to make real progress.

Anyone else experience this?

Are they not playing? BGA has a clock feature for this already. If they haven't run over time, then there isn't an issue yet.

Have you clicked the link to see what it actually says?

Is a player not playing? You can:
First, remember that each player has the absolute right to think for the entire allotment of their thinking time.

As Frank pointed out.

Try to contact this person via the chatroom.
You may be disconnected from the server and the other player(s) may be waiting on you: refresh the page (hit F5) to check.

The second line there does happen more often than it possibly should (I personally think it shouldn't, but I assume they have reasons for coding it the way it is). People find themselves booted because their connection has failed somehow and client side it still looks like their opponent's turn, but server side, they've actually run out of time themselves.

If a player is definitely not there, you just have to wait until this player's thinking time is over.
As soon as your opponent is out of time, you can skip their turn.
DO NOT quit the game by yourself: you would get a penalty for leaving and the other player would not.

Finally, what to do (and not do) if they've actually disappeared and/or run out of time.

As others have said, I would assume it's there as something of a "this comes up a lot, let's put this info in front of people before they ask the question".

Out of curiosity I clicked the link. Nothing happened. It just refreshed the page.

I figured it would link to a page on how the game setting timers work, as was suggested by the posts above mine in this thread.

FrankJones wrote: ↑06 October 2025, 20:24 Out of curiosity I clicked the link. Nothing happened. It just refreshed the page.

I figured it would link to a page on how the game setting timers work, as was suggested by the posts above mine in this thread.

It pops up a dialog with the info I quoted in my last post for me.