Suggestions...

I recall playing 4-player chess on an actual board several years back through this model so it's pretty cool that chess.com is offering their own spin on the game.  Many of the suggestions can be taken with a grain of salt.  An example being the 2 vs 2 person within 4-player chess suggestion, that'd actually be a variant.  Most variants on here are not defined by any true rules by one's national federation nor FIDE.

There are 2 suggestions that I would set forth:

a) If a chess-player leaves a game within their first 15 minutes (be it resign, checkmate or worse and what I'm seeing too much of: they bolt or let the clock run down when in a bad position) they should have to wait a set period as determined by chess.com staff.  That period should be stern if they leave by either resigning, letting the clock run down or close their browsers out aka run/bolt; I'd go with a 3 hour wait until they can play another 4-player chess game.  If they get checkmated they should wait until the entire game they were mated concludes.

RATIONALE: a) That person who leaves abruptly might have eliminated pieces from one or more of their opponents rendering that/those opponents pieces down for their own remaining games.

b) a chess-player that currently finishes their game early (i.e. is eliminated 3rd or 4th) can play another game at their present rating and play up in the subsequent game when in reality they should be seeded much lower with a lower rating which has not been computed yet [until their last game concludes.]

In the following pic the individual competing as yellow resigned after they lost a couple of pieces.  They could however play another game a second later 🙄

On this next pic, blue let the clock run down when they lost their last Rook.  They didn't even have the common decency to resign.  Made much worse he/she did damage to all three opponents and as such all three have to continue playing pieces down.  It begs the question, why even play 4-player chess if you're going to bolt?! 😡😤

I won that game so don't rank on me 😝 LOL

b) On communication: /stop-chat is great if you don't want communication but if it's going to be kept as it is now, the player who enters that command should have their username/handle disclosed in the message as opposed to some generic line like a player has disabled chat.  Some of us can use 4-player to be entertaining and talk sports and other such banter.  That being stated, correct chat so if someone disables it, it's disabled for them only.  4-player chess is a variant, there's no right or wrong in how it operates, so why copy the foolish disabling chat for everyone we see on live chess in it too??

The devil's advocate would argue disabling it for all prevents teaming up but that's seen so few in my end.  It's been more as an instant messenger for chatting than cheating/teaming up.  The other sub-suggestion to this is create a 4-player chess board that always has chat enabled and another that has it disabled and the former cannot be disabled.  Everything shouldn't be competitive and 4-player chess itself as a means of camaraderie can be a great marketing/promotions for chess.com

All my very best to everyone -just have fun! 👍

Only reason why I use /stop chat is if one player is rude to another or me, Like for example someone called me a rude word, because I was bout to checkmate them so I stop the chat.

And, Sometimes I resign because I have to go back to studying and really it doesn't hurt anyone else, It only hurts your rating, plus, If you had to wait 3 hours before you could play again because you resigned to claim your win since you were 21+ points ahead that would be unfair.

That's fine, cut the chat but that shouldn't mean 2 or that opponent and others shouldn't continue chatting after you disable reading messages.  My suggestion would play in this scenarion, you would not be able to read further/future messages.

That's where you're wrong, it does hurt someone else, if you took out someone's pawn or any other piece or even if you logged out moving a piece or two those pieces now block a pawn from promoting or moving freely.  You should have known down enter to play and instead study and not hinder 3 chess-players.

Riptidejr wrote:

The staff implemented a button that says "Claim Win" win you are 21 points ahead of someone, tell me why they would implement a three hour penalty if they did this?

But the person can still continue saying things that should not be said, and if you block the chat from your eyes only it does not stop the chat to stop people from teaming,

@EmpireCityRay
> I'd go with a 3 hour wait until they can play another 4-player chess game.

5 minutes could be enough. This is the duration you must wait after leaving a game of Settlers of Catan, a strategy board game for 3-4 players. The game has been played for more than a decade via computers and game servers, and the software has been evolved to handle most of the issues that 4-player chess is facing right now. For example:
Problem: Players abandon games because these are not going well for them.
Solutions:
a) Allow substitute players to enter and continue a game in progress. Substitutes are rewarded with the privilege to not lose rating, whatever the outcome of the game.
b) Penalize deserters with nagging messages, and also with a 5 minute barrier before joining a new game.
c) Automatically maintain a statistical value for each player, the percentage of games he has finished, and allow game instantiators to set a threshold to join the game. In practice the result is that deserters are forced to play against other deserters, and responsible players are playing most of the time against other responsible players.
Problem: Players don't agree about settings like enabling the chat or not.
Solution: Allow game instantiators to set their preferred settings, and other players can decide to join or not after reviewing the clearly visible settings.
Problem: Players want to play different variants.
Solution: The same as above.
Problem: Some players are nasty in the chat, or play dirty.
Solution: Allow players to block specific opponents, so that they will never encounter again each other in a future game.

SMH, that's in the sole belief that everyone is going to team up.

@Skeftomilis  I am totally with you on your last 3 solutions of your entire message, that works 👌 but on your first half I am not with "b" 5 minutes is not enough of a penalty and really a fluke as they can jump onto another game with their current rating rather than a lower game and skew rating results in the succeeding game.  The minimum suggestion would be until the conclusion of the first game but even that is not fair as it doesn't drive the message to them chess-players that cutting out is beyond wrong.

k

@Riptidejr the button wasn't meant for that but thanks you reminded me of another suggestion!  The "Claim Win" button should become lit after 50 moves have passed among the remaining two players.  Currently when the game comes down to 2 players if the player with the least pieces and/or worse position on the board has more "points" than the other opponent they can tap that button and "win."  It is idiotic that checkmate would not supersede and thereby win the game or grant them the 20 points for checkmate for an individual because their opponent pressed a button disallowing the continuance of a game.  The last 2 players should be forced to play it out! 

I agree that it should be played out too, because their is a chance too win if you are in teh losing position, on the other hand the other player resigns to win. . .

Abandoning a game of Settlers of Catan is much more destructive than abandoning a game of 4-player chess, since the first game cannot be played with two players. And still the 5 minutes penalty seems to work well. There is no need to go with a severe punishment, when a lenient one could do the job. You don't really want to make players feel miserable for encountering a temporary internet connection problem, or encountering an urgent real-life issue that needs to be resolved immediately.

Here is a screenshot of the "Lobby" of Settlers of Catan software, where the players matching procedure takes place. The number of stars indicate the percentage of games finished, of the last 100 games played by each player. Three stars is the best possible indicator (more than 80% I think). All players in view have 3 stars.

Absolutely they should play it out!

In this pic Upon the 3rd person being eliminated, Yellow having only a King to my 2 Rooks (the other is blocked by the message), 4Pawns and a King, they chose to hit the "Claim Win" button and "won" because they had 4 points more than me when in reality on eventual position I would have won vs them and earned the 20 checkmate points putting me at 75 to their 54.  This is not a me standing up for what's best for me, this is arguing the semantics of what is a win in this variation of 4-player chess.  At present one wins by hitting that button when they are down to 2 but technically they probably wouldn't win due to position or their pieces or both.  As depicted off the pic, the rationale for having the last 2 players play it holds validity.

@Skeftomilos I've seen too many players run the clock down or even as in plentiful occasions, just quit out of their browsers to avoid continuing the notion that ALL of them have an emergency would be hard to swallow.  This cop-out by chess-players is something talk about "lenient" that chess.com and its staff has let slide for far too long on live chess and should not be allowed on 4-player which tends to be longer and where more effort on one's mind is utilized.

I just had a funnier one, Red in spanish posted "let's all do the same" and proceeds to capture King's Bishop, one the other 3 follow suit, SMH  But again I would brush it off but wouldn't want ALL of chat turned off because of one nimrod.

Me and my dad always used to play Settlers of Catan with the card version, Is this one free?

I think you can play the base game for free, but you must pay once to be able to play the variants. But I may be wrong.