Why I'm not continuing my premium membership

[OzLefty76]

The system BGA uses to punish people for taking too long with their turns - and literally stopping them playing games even whilst they're paying for the service - is too harsh and badly designed.

In particular
* there's still no mechanism to go to games in order of having the least time left. If you don't have time to have all your turns, and you go through them using the "next game" button, it'll prioritise games that have had turns the most recently! You're trying to get the games in danger of time-out sorted first, and you literally have to go through all your turns to get to them. If the other player in another game has a turn in the meantime, well bad luck, the system is going to bring back that game first.
* whatever the system is for calculating time spent, even on the slowest setting (1 move every 2 days) players in certain timezones run out faster - even if each player is playing once a day, the one who plays closest after the other will have plenty of time, and the other will run through it all before the game is over (particularly a problem in longer games with lots of turns). It should be that if you're on 1 move every 2 days, you're fine as long as you have a move every 2 days.
* the punishments are obscenely harsh. The number of points you lose from someone deciding to end your turn - even if you'd played in the last 24 hours - are extreme, and the punishment that results, which is literally stopping you doing the thing you're paying for, is ludicrous.

I might consider a premium membership again if these are addressed, but I'm not paying again for a service that cuts me off so unreasonably.

[euklid314]

The system BGA uses to punish people for taking too long with their turns - and literally stopping them playing games even whilst they're paying for the service - is too harsh and badly designed.

In particular
* there's still no mechanism to go to games in order of having the least time left. If you don't have time to have all your turns, and you go through them using the "next game" button, it'll prioritise games that have had turns the most recently! You're trying to get the games in danger of time-out sorted first, and you literally have to go through all your turns to get to them. If the other player in another game has a turn in the meantime, well bad luck, the system is going to bring back that game first.
* whatever the system is for calculating time spent, even on the slowest setting (1 move every 2 days) players in certain timezones run out faster - even if each player is playing once a day, the one who plays closest after the other will have plenty of time, and the other will run through it all before the game is over (particularly a problem in longer games with lots of turns). It should be that if you're on 1 move every 2 days, you're fine as long as you have a move every 2 days.
* the punishments are obscenely harsh. The number of points you lose from someone deciding to end your turn - even if you'd played in the last 24 hours - are extreme, and the punishment that results, which is literally stopping you doing the thing you're paying for, is ludicrous.

I might consider a premium membership again if these are addressed, but I'm not paying again for a service that cuts me off so unreasonably.

In the time setting "1 move every 2 days" you get 48 hours added to your time bank every time you make a move (it cannot exceed some threshhold however). It is impossible to lose on time if you make a move every second day - independent of the time zone of your opponent.

[nik592]

I mean, you do you when it comes to premium membership, but in my experience, your claims are incorrect.

* there's still no mechanism to go to games in order of having the least time left. If you don't have time to have all your turns, and you go through them using the "next game" button, it'll prioritise games that have had turns the most recently! You're trying to get the games in danger of time-out sorted first, and you literally have to go through all your turns to get to them. If the other player in another game has a turn in the meantime, well bad luck, the system is going to bring back that game first.

If I have a table over time, BGA always shows me that one first in the "next game" queue. I just logged on to my partner's account (as I've just played basically all of my turns, but he has not) and it shows me his games in ascending order of time remaining - that is, the one with the least time remaining first. If I click the "next game" button, it goes to the first game in that list and works through in the same order. I don't normally pay too much attention to my time remaining on games, but my vague recollection is that's how it's been for some time (ie. I usually see games that are ABOUT to run out of time first thing in the morning - after I've slept and those clocks are getting close to zero, if that happens, which it doesn't always).

You may be correct that it will prioritise games where you take a turn, and then another player takes a turn not long after and it becomes your turn again before you're all the way through your queue. There could be a good reason for this - if another player is online, then perhaps it makes sense to play through some turns with that player(s) while they're available.

Additionally, you can always select the game you want to play first from the list either under your avatar or on the games in progress page. How many "in danger" games do you ever have at one time? If it's most of yours, then I wonder what speed you're playing at (or how often you're logging on).

* whatever the system is for calculating time spent, even on the slowest setting (1 move every 2 days) players in certain timezones run out faster - even if each player is playing once a day, the one who plays closest after the other will have plenty of time, and the other will run through it all before the game is over (particularly a problem in longer games with lots of turns). It should be that if you're on 1 move every 2 days, you're fine as long as you have a move every 2 days.

I'm pretty sure BGA is using the same concept of time as the rest of the world - ie. seconds, minutes, hours. 1 move per 2 days means every time it is your turn, you get 2 days added to your time bank, up to a maximum of 6 days. You can absolutely only log on every 2 days (48 hours that is) and make 1 move in these games, and you should not be running out of time. In fact, with your time bank, you should be able to log on a bit less than every 2 days, depending on the length of the game. Timezones don't impact this.

Timezones (or rather the active play time of the player before you) DO impact the way tournament times works, but this is because tournaments have a fixed amount of time for ALL moves in the game. So if your clock says "2 days" at the start of the game, that's never going to be replenished. But tournaments are a whole different thing that you didn't mention, so I'm assuming you're talking about regular play. In which case, my statement above applies. If you're logging on every 2 days, you should not be running out of time.

* the punishments are obscenely harsh. The number of points you lose from someone deciding to end your turn - even if you'd played in the last 24 hours - are extreme, and the punishment that results, which is literally stopping you doing the thing you're paying for, is ludicrous.

Punishments are only harsh if you repeatedly are booted from games. And frankly, if you show up late to an appointment with me 3 times in a row, I'm probably going to start thinking a bit less of you, and maybe consider not doing whatever business/social interaction we're doing. I'd like to know if my opponents are people who are going to disappear for long periods on a regular basis. So would others. And I'd kind of like to avoid people who do that if I can.

I took a look at some of your games. You were recently booted from a game at a speed of 1 move per 2 days, because you didn't play any turns between Jan 20-24, and then again between Feb 4-7, 7-10, 10-13, 17-20, 20-23, Feb 24-Mar 1... those are a lot longer than 2 day intervals, and quite a few of them. Once your time dipped into the negative, your opponent booted you, and I'm not sure I blame them. 1 move/2 days is pretty slow as it is, and you're regularly stretching out to 3+ day absences? Looking at other games, the pattern is similar - you're regularly dipping into your time bank, and taking more than 2 days between turns. It doesn't look like it often causes you to be booted, as you've only had 2 bootings in the last 60 days, but you're certainly not logging on faithfully every 2 days to take your turns.

[Manic Meeple]

I can relate to being frustrated about timer penalties. My biggest beef with it is in real-time, half the time there's no warning because the site is buggy about refreshing itself sometimes, and you could literally be sitting there watching your screen waiting for your turn, considering hitting the button to kick your opponent, while it's actually your turn but you'd have to refresh the page to know it. I think if there are penalties for running out of time (and there should be) then the timer system should at least freakin WORK =p

That said, overall I think your decision is a bit disproportionate. If the premium membership weren't so incredibly cheap considering how much is available, or if the bugs/quality of service were much worse, then yeah. I probably wouldn't pay $5/mo for just one or two games, and I probably wouldn't pay $5/mo if the problems made things much closer to literally unplayable, and I wouldn't pay for membership here if it were $50...

But ~$5/mo for ALL these games, and they MOSTLY work, hell yeah. They can have a few flaws and it's still a great deal IMO.

[Exotic Dreams]

You do you when it comes to buying premium.
I do think if that you have trouble with timing out on turn based games, I'd make the following suggestions:

- Check any tournaments you might join for time limits.
- Consider playing on friendly mode if you can't play BGA enough to keep up with turn based games.
- Consider using your time tokens ( I forgot what these are called right now) if you have any emergencies that reduce your gameplay.

[dschingis27]

I might consider a premium membership again if these are addressed,

Ok then, welcome back! The first two things you want are already implemented. The third one should be less of a problem then.

[FrankJones]

It should be that if you're on 1 move every 2 days, you're fine as long as you have a move every 2 days.

Good news!

As other have noted, this is literally exactly the system in place. Making one move every 2 days adds 48 hours to your clock, and it is literally impossible to have your timer go into the red if you actually do this. Which, apparently, based on the replies, you were not doing.

[BarnardsStar]

It should be that if you're on 1 move every 2 days, you're fine as long as you have a move every 2 days.

Good news!

As other have noted, this is literally exactly the system in place. Making one move every 2 days adds 48 hours to your clock, and it is literally impossible to have your timer go into the red if you actually do this. Which, apparently, based on the replies, you were not doing.

It even works out if you only take your moves an average of two days apart, too! If you alternate between 1 day and 3 day gaps between turns, you’ll be fine and never run out of time! (Because then you are still adding 96 hours every four days, you see…)

[Jellby]

It may be different in games with out-of-turn actions (trades, reactions, etc.) I don't think you get a full turn worth of time back every time you are supposed to do something. In that case, if you only log in once every 2 days to click one button... you may eventually run out of time.

In my opinion, those games are simply not appropriate for turn-based play, at least not with such long turns. Don't play them.

[nik592]

It may be different in games with out-of-turn actions (trades, reactions, etc.) I don't think you get a full turn worth of time back every time you are supposed to do something. In that case, if you only log in once every 2 days to click one button... you may eventually run out of time.

In my opinion, those games are simply not appropriate for turn-based play, at least not with such long turns. Don't play them.

Or login a bit more often if you know it's that kind of game.

That said, the user here was not logging in every 2 days as they said, at least according to the games I was looking at.