Turn based AFK rule change

The AFK rule for turn based games is currently 3 turns. That is way too short time when playing with 6 hour turn wait time. This means that you can go AFK just in 18 hours. A turn based game with 6 hour time limit and 6 hour jumps is actually pretty much a live game and in live games the AFK rule is 3 days. I would suggest the AFK rule should be 3 days for all turn based games except 6 days for 48h wait time games.

We have seen too many accidental AFK’s in what I believe is the first 32 player turn based game. And propably no surprise, but it just happened to me also… :wink: Due to timezone issues there was 2 ticks going during night (6h wait time) and due to common cold and feeling bad I forgot to login/submit early enough one morning. That made the 3 turn limit hit me. Totally my own fault, but it would be great to allow more room for error in fast turn based games.

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I will make a note to increase this next time I’m in the code. To keep things simple I might just change the limit from 3 to 5 or something like that.

Do you need help contacting the games Admin so you can be re-instated? Are they still in the game and reading thier messages?

Better email me directly if you need quick help because i’m trying to stay away from the forums while I’m supposed to be working.

I think just incrementing the “missed turn timeout” from 3 to 5 is a BIG mistake … it needs to be a function of the submit time.

I.e. there is a 24 person-48 hours to submit game looking for players … so if someone bails, it would take TEN day for them to timeout … a huge disservice to the other players.

What about set the AFK limit to 3 turns AND and at least (say) 31 hours?

AFK’s are the scourge of NP (totally messes up game play, even when it benefits me) so we don’t want people accidentally going AFK … but that has to be balanced with keeping the game moving when someone really does bail.

I was thinking the important factor is how much game time passes, not how much real time passes.

In realtime games you are kicked after 72 hours of game time (except right at the start of the game). In theory it should be the same for TBG. If you are doing 24 hour jumps it should be 3 turns. If you are doing 12 hour jumps this would 6 turns. If you are doing 6 hour jumps it should be 12 turns.

But I guess if you want the AFK players kicked as soon as possible because they are slowing the game down, it should be 72 hours regardless of what’s going on in the game.

The 72 hours allows you to have a weekend away from the game.

I would also rather see it 72 hours of real time for turn based games. That would also open the possibilities to try 1 hour jumps with even less than 6 hour wait time…

But I know you’re very busy right now so increasing it from 3 to 5 or more would also be a good improvement. That would really allow more breathing room in those fast paced turn based games. Aslo I’m going for a very low stress game next and as such do not mind even if I have to wait 10 days for someone to afk.

And thanks for the help offer, but it’s ok. My own mistake and it would already be unfair for others if I would return to the game now. So thank you, but no worries. :wink:

I think real-time is important because of … real-life! :wink:

Note that if you have a 48 hour turn based game, you could only miss ONE turn … so here again is my algorithmic suggestion which I think combines the best of both worlds and should be fairly easy to recode:

Player AFK’s if they miss three turns AND it has been at least ## real-time hours.

Where ## could be set to 31 (so 4 turns on a 10 hour game) or (if you really want to give people the entire weekend), set to 72. My preference would be the former since I bet for everyone legit player who “needs” the weekend, there are probably at least 25X players that are going AFK, so why wait?

Most people have access on their mobile devices, so if they are truly pressed, it’s not much work to login and just submit to keep yourself active.

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I think that if you miss one of the first couple turns in a turn based game, you should be out. They really drag at the beginning because every turn takes the max time at the start of games. Because of that, other people drop out I imagine. The default games always have 4-5 drop outs in the first day or two making them very frustrating.

Maybe you get an extra “missed turn” get out of jail card for every 4 turns you’ve played and it maxes at 3, starts at 0.

782 day old bump! I posted a suggestion expanding on this one here.