Refund added time, or give partial time?

There have been a lot of times in my team games where I am not sure if my partner will be able to take their turn in time. So I extend them, only to see they take their turn within the normal time limit. It would be nice if in these circumstances if my extension could be returned.

If there is more than 24 hours left on the clock (the time of the extension), the last extension used is refunded to the person who used it.

This is especially important if there is a greater time difference between members.

Or if instead of extending by 24 hours you had a bucket of 48 hours and could add them however you deemed fit. So I could extend by 3 hours, my bucket would go down, their time would go up, and instead of saying added time it would be added x hours in time.

I have had this same thing happen many times. I am for this idea Dough_boy. I vote yes if it can be done.

Great idea!

If we implement this, why not just always add time everywhere always. The add times are turned into "you're allowed to miss two turns and you'll get longer".
That would completely change the meaning from "I know I'm away that weekend but it won't happen again anytime later" to "whatever I don't have to take my turn because it'll auto add and I can take it tomorrow anyway".

Do we want that?

Some people take a week vacation. Why not give us 7 days?

Maybe it is different for team games? Nothing sucks more as a partner to see them timeout because you couldn't help them. Life happens and having more flexibility would be better.

I rarely if ever use the time on myself...even in standard games...only my partner.

If hour increments is to small, what about 4 hour or 8 hour increments?

Oh...and no auto add. Or you could make auto add a setting you buy, the time is burned faster (so 1 hour is 2) and you win 10 coin instead of 20.

But if we implement your suggestion, than there is nothing stopping you from just clicking the 'add time for teammate' every time, right?
And then there is absolutely no reason to not just automatically add that every time. Right?

Do you understand my problem with your suggestion? Or at least that your suggestion would completely change the add time mechanism? (One can discuss about whether that is a good thing or a problem).

P.S. I don't give you 7 days because that would make the other players wait a long time. Which is not polite. If you're gone for longer than a weekend, just don't play. Or have someone take your turns for you.

Although it would be nice/easy to have the suggested feature; I am not in favour of it either. Takes away that element of planning/strategy (cope with setback).

I decided to respond because of the bolded part. Are we being encouraged to share accounts?

You are worried about a worst case scenario. Would you have someone who adds time to their partner all the time, I guess. I would argue the vast majority only do it so they don't time out and impact the game.

I think everyone who plays the game knows that there is a possibility that a game could be extended 48 hours x # of participants. I haven't ever seen anyone "abuse" the system. I am proposing to make it flexible vs rigid, but still within the confines of the original 48 hours.

Yes I know that programming would have to be done to make this change but I still fail to see how it is a bad thing. Maybe you are thinking I am saying give everyone 48 hours that is unlimited? No, I am not saying that at all. Just make it more flexible. So I can add the 48 hours at once, or 48 1 hour increments. But once all assigned I can't get it back. 

The other suggestion was IF I assigned an existing 24 hours because I think my partner is going to miss their turn, , but they take their turn and still have more than 24 hours (within their original window), I should be able to get that extension back. In this example, if there was only 23 hours left I wouldn't get it back. But if more than 24 I would. Basically it wasn't ever needed and it never impacted the game.

This underlined suggestion means that you could always add the extra time, without having to think/worry you only have 1 more left after you use the first one, in case it isn't actually used. Therefore, you would be perfectly fine activating the extended time every time. It would only be used if needed (& then you'd be very happy that it was activated). This, I think, is what Matty means with the auto add.

But what does it matter? If we are saying that everyone gets 48 hours to extend a game, who cares if it is 1 hour or 24? If it is my partner's turn and they are not around, how do I know how many hours to add? So maybe I add 8 hours. If it is my turn, I know how many hours I need to add to myself. Policy would remain the same, I use them, if the person goes before all of the time is up, it is lost. I can only add extra time that I have left. Right now I assign 24 hours. If I could assign 8 I could save my game and partner for unforeseen work/life issues. So if it goes from 1=24 to 1=8, then I can potentially save 6 turns at most or still the same 1 turn at a minimum.

We all know when we have planned vacations and longer-term absences...but life happens.

No. But if you are on vacation and for some reason you can't finish your games, this can be a better option than just resigning. If you do, please state it clearly in the chat that this is what you're doing. I think if you do that, it's fine. (@Ely / Hoodlum, what's your view on this?)

This is a lot of work and will be annoying to use from a UX perspective. So I'm kinda discarding this idea.

Assuming we would implement this idea, do you agree it would make the most sense for a player trying to win to just always click that add time button?
I'm not saying you would do this - you can choose to play a suboptimal time-strategy.


Please note that I'm not replying to whether or not I like your ideas really. I first want you to understand that implementing these ideas (even the 'pooled time' one) would drastically change the way the system works and what 'the purpose' of the add time / absence mode system is.

For #1, not knowing how the backend is here, I am assuming there is a column for extensions that is 0,1,2. So I would multiply that number by 24 (if hour increments) for current games and default to 48 for new games. Then in the UI change it from a button that said add time to be a drop list that defaulted to add how many hours. Then the options underneath would be 1-48 (removing any spent). On the backend it removes the count (like it does now), so if was 48 and I used 8, now the count is 40. Then in the messaging say dough_boy added time would become dough_boy added x hours. 

And I know you will say I don't know what I am talking about. It is true that "a lot of work" is subjective. If this was functioning as how I outlined I would think it would only be a handful of hours of work. But if it isn't designed like this then it could be a lot more. But ULTIMATELY it shouldn't be about how much work it is. IF people want it, then it should be put up against other competing ideas. If you have 10 hours to devote and this is 20, well, it gets shelved, etc.

For #2, I want to point out that this is TWO different ideas. They are not together. So if #1 (here) isn't, #2 might be considered, etc. I guess I could see someone always adding time knowing it would be given back if not necessary. But I would have to add it when it is my partners turn, or my turn for me. Even if I did this every time and I started with say 44 hours, what does this ultimately hurt? If I take 44 hours, I have used it (and only have 2). If I take 20 hours, I get it back, but I still took my turn within the originally allotted time and nothing changed. So I don't really see the benefit of always clicking it unless it is truly needed.

-----

All this being said, please explain to me from your viewpoint using an example how only players trying to win would click the add time button? Like what strategic advantage is it to be pressing the button every turn, etc.

Yes, this has been done before but the players who needed it done took it one step further than just posting it in the chat and asked/let us know before doing it to make sure it was ok to do.

I haven't seen this as a regular occurring issue where someone needs to keep adding time to their partner because they don't know if their partner is going to be reliable enough to take their turn(s) on time so often that it is necessary to want the feature as a safety precaution in order to protect against missing their turn(s).

Using 36 hour formats instead on 24 hour for the game settings should relieve that but maybe the better solution for those who need extra time a lot would just be to have a 48hr long term game option?