Board Game Arena

I'll try to keep this as general as possible to not identify any particular users. This didn't even affect me, so looking at my recent game history will give no clues.

I've recently become aware of a bug in a game that lets a player take an early action that is explicitly forbidden in the rules.

There were at least seven different reports of the bug, but each one only had a single vote. The oldest report is from more than a year ago. The bug is only possible with game options that are relatively rare for the game, so it probably doesn't affect that many players.

I looked through one player's game history and found at least four cases of them using this exploit, so I decided to report them using the "exploiting a known bug" category. It's too soon for any action to have been taken yet, but I'm curious how these reports are eventually handled.

Obviously, the ideal solution would be for the bug to be fixed. It seems possible that the issue hasn't even been examined by the developer, and hopefully it isn't that difficult to fix. Do the developers get flagged by these player reports?

The other concern is that a player could plausibly think this particular action was simply allowed and that it makes sense to use it whenever possible. Do players receive a warning first before any punishment?

plausible deniability. Plus the 'if the game lets me' argument.

get the bug fixed is the best solution.

without exact details it's difficult to say exactly how bad it is.

I have just looked at the moderation policy which has this section:

To be moderated, a Bug Exploit should met these conditions:

• the bug must have been reported in the BGA bug system
• the accused player should use it often and deliberately
• the report's author must prove that there is a benefit for the accused player

The standard penalty is the removal of all the points (ELO, Arena) obtained by using this technique. If it has been used many times, a complete reset of ELO/Arena points and awards removal can be done.

Based on this, it does not look like developers get notified, or that any warnings will be given.