Round Timer - Addressing "Slow" Players

[RiouInsuiko]

I've been playing TCG online for over a month now. It's been a great experience so far, but there are a few minor annoyances that I've run into. One of them and the target of this particular topic are "slow" players. To clarify: I'm not speaking of players who are "slow" to end their turn because they've got a deck strategy that requires the use of many trainer cards, stadiums, abilities, etc. I'm speaking about the players who go inactive almost every single turn (for at least 46 seconds to trigger the message) and multiple times in a turn. And when you're playing a match that has the potential of going over a half hour, you're really putting yourself in a bad position where you either need to wait it out or concede and lose. Again, I don't want to rush people, nor do I want to provoke people into ending their turn early if they're planning out a strategy. This feedback is specifically about players with a pattern behavior that is not conducive to smooth and mutually enjoyable gameplay.

I recently met one player who was taking a very, very long time to get moving. I didn't want to be rude at first, but eventually it drove me to ask the question: What's taking so long?

His response was surprising. He wanted to be annoying and part of his winning strategy was taking forever during his turns in the hopes that the other player would quit out of frustration or boredom. Needless to say, after hearing that, I was determined to stay and try and put him in his place. Though eventually, that motivation wore off, and I just threw in the towel. I was compelled to forfeit out of boredom and frustration.

That was the only example where a user specifically stated that they had malicious intent. Of course, there's always the possibility that my comment triggered his response and he was in fact just multi-tasking or something, I'm not sure. Either way, it provides context to the issue.

I don't have concrete solutions, because I'm not sure of the entirety of the systems in place, but I can provide some suggestions to resolve this problem that I'm sure other players have run into as well. I'll list a couple of them here:

Automatic loss for players who consistently go inactive. Perhaps allow for a single inactivity message, followed by a second with a warning, a third with a final warning, and the fourth time a player triggers the inactivity limit that they will forfeit the match. This would require the system to better identify inactivity as it could prove to be a penalty for decks that utilize deck searching cards (this often triggers inactivity if you are sizing your deck or deciding which card to take)

Another suggestion would be for a new game mode: Speed rounds (Theme, Standard, Expanded, Unlimited). A time limit of "X" number of seconds per round, where if the player doesn't attack or end their turn (mega evolving included) the round will forcefully be turned over to the opposing player.

Finally, for all non-tournament play, another solution would be to only connect to players with an equal or better connection to the server/other player as we do. This will prevent people from playing against others who have a poor connection (which may translate to long turns) and as a result allow for more smooth gameplay. This would ideally be a toggle-able option, because if there are no other players online, it would be nice to lower your settings to have some match as opposed to none.

I could possibly think of additional solutions to this perceived problem, but I think three is enough to get an idea of what could be done.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my suggestions. Cheers!

[phalanx1337]

yes there are people doing this.

some just waste time when they have clearly lost as well, especially with decks built around being annoying regarding animations as well.

[RiouInsuiko]

yes there are people doing this.

some just waste time when they have clearly lost as well, especially with decks built around being annoying regarding animations as well.

Speaking of animations.. Pain Pellets anyone? Two dusknoirs out doing pain pellets is the most annoying thing ever. 

[Mod_Poplar]

Hi RiouInsuiko,

 

Thanks for your feedback and your suggestions! I'll submit them to the Dev team for consideration and will leave your thread open in the meantime for further discussion.

 

As always, we appreciate your input!

[Rendevoir]

Speaking of animations.. Pain Pellets anyone? Two dusknoirs out doing pain pellets is the most annoying thing ever. 

have you faced flygon dusknoir after the "actualization" pal?

[LynnPhang]

Oh I would love a speed round.

like 20 sec a turn shouldbe more than enough