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[cascadestyler]

I recently returned to dominion online after several years away. As well as a lot of new cards (and some sadly departed ones - plus a lot of not so sadly departed to be honest) and changes to the interface that in the main seem positive, though in some cases a lot to get used to, I've noticed one thing that's extremely annoying: A huge increase in the amount of malicious disconnection.

In the week or two I've been back, I've already completely lost count of the number of games where, having pulled off one particularly good turn or otherwise got into a position where I'm pretty safely ahead, for instance when the point gap is bigger than the remaining VP, I've just seen my opponent disconnect (sometimes with a derisory/abusive chat message), and had to wait out the force-resign timer. I'd say about 1/4 people whom I beat are beaten by this force-resign method at the moment.

This is, to say the least, really annoying. There's clearly no way to prevent it, and it used to happen very occasionally, but now it seems like near-standard behaviour for a lot of players, and it must be horrendously distorting the ratings because not everyone will sit there and wait to force a resignation (which I'd guess is why they do it). I was trying to work out why this might have increased so much over time, and then I suddenly remembered that you can block and/or report players, and that this was what I used to do.

So, I tried to do that after my most recent irritating force-resign situation (big Bridge Troll turn got me to an unassailable position on a board with no alt-VP to speak of), and realised I couldn't block or report them from the wash-up screen anymore. This is because, once they've disconnected, they seem to show up on the wash-up as "empty slot". In order to block the player, I had to manually go into my blocklist after copying the name from the log. I couldn't find any way to report them.

This increased friction in blocking players who are doing this, and seeming inability to report them, strikes me as a good explanation for why this behaviour seems so much more common now. It's bad enough I'm considering not really bothering learning all the new cards since I last played and continuing to play, because for every 30m or so spent actually playing there's a good 5-10m spent waiting out force-resign timers right now, and it's just irritating and dissatisfying.

So, am I right about this? Is there actually a way to block and/or report I'm just being too blind to see? If so, what *is* causing this situation? Have I just been tremendously unlucky? Am I working my rating back up after a long time away and just playing against a segment of the player pool that was always much more open to cheating, and really it's always been this way?

[heron]

I think you are right about not being able to block from that screen if the other player disconnects.
You can block during the game though if you want; click on the people button and then the relevant lightning.

I don't know if this has become more common or not.

[Ingix]

Of course, sorry to hear you had such a bad experience.

You can now blocklist a player (or spectator) while the game is still going. On the lower right is a list of icons, one being 3 "meeples" and a number, showing the number of spectators. If you click on that, you see all players and spectators, and can friendlist them (heart) or blocklist them (lightning bolt).

[cascadestyler]

Thanks both - did not notice the in-game blocklist, which is helpful, and I'll be using that - though still no report there, which I'd say is probably more important for discouraging it.

[dane-m]

Thanks both - did not notice the in-game blocklist, which is helpful, and I'll be using that - though still no report there, which I'd say is probably more important for discouraging it.

I believe that in theory (I don't know to what extent it happens in practice) players are investigated if they get blocked by multiple other players.

I suspect that as you gain experience with the new cards and improve your rating, you will encounter fewer and fewer ill-mannered players.  Back when I was a new player, I fairly frequently found myself playing such people.  These days I rarely (but not never) encounter one.