3 Suggestions

[Nafghar]

1. Unranked mode
An unranked mode, that works exactly like normal mode just without elo. So that you have turn times and the opportunity to kick people if they do not play.

2. Different elo for different game modes
I suggest this mainly due to the difference of real-time and turn-based games. Those two modes are absolutely not comparable and having just one elo system combining those two game types does not make a lot of sense.

3. Punishing players hard for leaving on purpose
As it is right now, everyone can just quit a game if they get tilted and jump right into the next one without any immediate consequences. To differentiate between the players leaving on purpose and those with blameless behaviour there should be a poll after each game with a leaving player, asking the other players if they think the quitting happend on purpose. The results should be used to immediately punish the player with a ban depending on the outcome.

[thoun]

1. Unranked mode
An unranked mode, that works exactly like normal mode just without elo. So that you have turn times and the opportunity to kick people if they do not play.

It exists, normal mode without elo is called "training mode"

[Nafghar]

If you turn on Training mode, you no longer have a timer. Which also means that people can just stop playing if they think they are losing and the game will never end. Or is there a way to turn on the clock?

[Fletcheese]

2. Different elo for different game modes
I suggest this mainly due to the difference of real-time and turn-based games. Those two modes are absolutely not comparable and having just one elo system combining those two game types does not make a lot of sense.

Can you elaborate on why you think this? It's the same game and everyone is on a level playing field whether they play in real-time or turn-based. The only difference is how much time you have to think.

3. Punishing players hard for leaving on purpose
As it is right now, everyone can just quit a game if they get tilted and jump right into the next one without any immediate consequences. To differentiate between the players leaving on purpose and those with blameless behaviour there should be a poll after each game with a leaving player, asking the other players if they think the quitting happend on purpose. The results should be used to immediately punish the player with a ban depending on the outcome.

The problem is that there is no way to detect if someone left on purpose. Maybe their internet crashed or they have an emergency they need to attend to. Having players vote on why they think that person left is ridiculous. This would certainly lead to abuse where players punish someone who got lucky or they just don't like them. Can't rely on the average player to enforce moderation.

[MrBeardy]

Your suggestions seem a bit poor in practice:

A game mode without elo means people get to a certain level/rank then turn off playing elo. It artificially inflates the ranking as their losses no longer push them down the ladder. You can already see this in certain games where I've noticed certain experts who now only seem to play training games (presumably to try and preserve their expert status). At least you can avoid them by spotting the training game status.

Want a timed game? Elo counts. Don't want elo change? Use training mode and accept you can't have timer.

2 and 3 I agree with the responses above. Why is turn based any different just because a game is played incrementally rather than in one burst? People playing turn based don't sit the for 24 hours planning moves. They tend to log in, do their turn, log out. Some people play 20- 30 turn based games simultaneously. In some ways that's more impressive than real time being able to hold all the games' data in their heads.

3 community enforcement is too open to abuse. Someone quits due to bullying and team play/ king making and then those same people get to score why the person quit? Yeah that's not going to work.

[Meeplelowda]

1. Unranked mode
An unranked mode, that works exactly like normal mode just without elo. So that you have turn times and the opportunity to kick people if they do not play.

It exists, normal mode without elo is called "training mode"

The OP specifically said they wanted "turn times and the opportunity to kick people," not just the absence of ELO. I'm not saying I think this is a good idea, but it's something different from training mode.

[Meeplelowda]

The only difference is how much time you have to think.

This can be a big difference. It's the reason why there are separate ratings for blitz/bullet time control chess vs. standard time control chess.

But I don't think there needs to be a change on BGA just because people using the format the OP doesn't prefer have higher ELOs (which I strongly suspect is the motivation).

[Nafghar]

Clarifying my points by adressing your comments:
To 1:
Once you have achieved a relatively high elo at a game people might not want to play it anymore to avoid losing their high rating. This means the elo system discourages player to play. at all, since Training Mode is not really an option to play with randoms. Also even competitive players might like to play a more casual game every now and then without getting punished for their worse play. I know that some people simply do not care about elo and rankings but some do and since I do not have the numbers I can not say, how much of a problem this is. Another drawback is if you are trying to play experimental modes, (for example there will be a 2v2 Terra Mystica which should not affect the ratings, since there is no implented Team Mode for it) you miss out on the timers.

To 2:
The more time you have to think the higher the elo of players thinking much will become and the lower the elo of players moving instantly will become in comparison to a normal real time game. This discourages strong turn-based players to play real-time games and it can also lead to underrated players in the real-time mode. As someone pointed out, this is the reason why you have different elos in chess as well.

To 3:
I think the vast majority of BGA players are great people to play and have fun with. But there are few people that ruin relatively many games for the other and at least in my games it was often very obvious when someone tilted and left or turned against their teammates. Often times you simply do not know what happens when a player leaves/loses connection but that is ok, you could just vote "reason unclear" and go on. I personally think that it is not easy to abuse such a vote, because I have never seen a game where almost all players conspired against one. If that should be the case there needs to be manual moderation anyway.

Thanks for all your replies

[LouMamou]

I share the extreme frustration with people who clearly quit on purpose. You can see whether they are no longer online. I just played a 4-person Ticket to Ride that lasted about 45 minutes, and it had already announced LAST TURN so there was literally only one thing left to do. The person who was dead last "quit" the game. It even said in the log that they "quit." This means the rest of us got messed over because this person didn't want to lose. I tried to give a thumbs down to them, but BGA wouild only let me give a personal opinion because I hadn't given enough green thumbs up (apparently you can't give a thumbs down unless you have give 5 thumbs up). I didn't even know what the thumbs up were for, and I still don't know! But I know there ought to be some actual punishment/ejection of people who have done this multiple times, quitting on the last move of the game over and over. I'm going to try to come back another day and give Pepper_17 a thumbs down. Grrrr. In case you can't tell, I'm so frustrated that this happens SO MANY TIMES. Are there other games where this doesn't happen so often?