Bring back Turn Based "No Time Limit + Friends Only"

[robinzig]

I've not chimed in so far but just want to identify myself - and my regular group - as another who has been impacted by these changes. We also play pretty much exclusively "no time limit" games.

It's very much a "first world problem" because it hasn't stopped us playing, we just play in Training Mode now, while it's a bit sad not to have ELO working it's not the end of the world. But we'd still much prefer if we could do things as we did before.

Thanks for listening, if indeed you do.

[Usakan]

I also dont understand this drop in efficiency in the system.

We play a lot of games simultaneously, and we need the extra pressure of ELO puntuation.

dont understand why this change was made. please reconsidere it.

[marta_night]

Sorry, not true, there are both realtime and turn based tables concerned by the problem.

As many of us stated before, this trap is not really a trap, as in 40 days the game table disappears and in the meanwhile you can play on other tables, it has no negative effect besides the annoying existence of it in your open games list. And this little annoying and temporary thing is a fair price to pay as we all know the risks when we start a NTL with ELO game. And yes, NTL games disappeared, players don't consider playing in Training Mode without ELO the same thing. I've actually paid for Premium membership because of it, as I wanted to be able to set up a table of a premium game and play only with my friend, without time pressure but with ELO, which is NOT a trick, if we reach the same level our ELO barely increases. If someone wants to abuse the ELO system, IMHO it seems like a really inefficient exploit

Please, take into account our many use cases and keep NTL with ELO for turn-based. If it gives more work for admins, stop cancelling "trapped" tables and let them expire on their own.

[fmiskolc]

Reading the replies from the admins - I'm really concerned about the lack of seemingly any empathy for the 24 pages of concerns / comments raised in the two threads. I think if we just undestood why the change was made, why it can't be changed back, or a different option provided based on the feedback, etc. would hlep. Now it just seems like (at least to me - maybe I'm too sensitive) that the response is basically "deal w/ it."

Also, calling ELO in NLT based a trick was definitely not something I expected as a paying customer and borderline insulting (at least that's how I felt). If you think you can game the system of ELO w/ this you have just about zero understanding of how ELO rankings work. You can't gain an advantage by beating up on the same people as you barely get any ELO for winning your games.

Anyway, rant over, I've commented on these posts a few times now and I think the response from admins to the concerns is basically ignore the points and repeat what's already been said on page one. Strange hill that BGA chose to die on w/ this one, but I guess now we know where we stand as paying customers.

[Gargoyle_7]

I understand and respect the thinking of the admins. I disagree though. I like the hit to my ranking when I play even my hundredth game of Signorie with the same two friends. Ultimately, I don't care much how long a game takes to play. And I don't care if others who I don't play want to waste their time padding their ranking relative to me.

Ultimately, this change reduces how much fun this site is. That's the bottom line. I might continue paying for a premium account, but in the aggregate this could affect business as people find another option, or downshift to a non-premium account in accordance to the enjoyment of the site. The arguments for the change seem to be a flimsy principle to hang the viability of the business on. But such is the free market. Ultimately, the business owners should have the right to do with their service what they want.

[Janabis]

Now, we can read that some of you would like to play without time limit, in a game where they are able not to play during weeks, and still want to get an ELO for that kind of game. Well, as BGA, we are saying that ELO, which is a competitive measurement, does not apply to this category of games. For you, I am sorry that we did a mistake by letting this possibility in the past, but this trick is not possible anymore.

WHYYYYYYY ???
Pourquoi jouer lentement devrait être une tare ? Pourquoi jouer lentement devrait nous interdire de jouer avec les elo ? Cela me paraît tout simplement être de la discrimination.
Pourquoi devrions-nous choisir entre le no time limit & l'elo alors qu'on pouvait avoir les deux ? Pourquoi régresser ?
Quid des jeux avec de trèèèèèès nombreux tours de jeux ? Ma dernière partie de belote a duré 3 mois. Que serait-elle devenue sans la durée illimitée ? Pareil pour une ancienne partie de Carcassonne avec toutes les extensions avait duré 1 an ...
Pourquoi devrions-nous nous justifier alors que cela a été naturel pendant des années !? Personne n'a demandé à supprimer ce mode de jeu & vous le faites. Une majorité demande à la réhabiliter & vous refusez ... où est la logique ?
Oui, je sais, on peut jouer sans elo, mais l'elo n'est pas forcément pour tout le monde un critère compétitif, c'est aussi un outil comparatif. Si plus personne n'utilise l'elo, comment ferai-je pour évaluer le niveau de mon adversaire avant de le rejoindre sur une partie ? ...

I'm sorry but ... j'ai l'impression que vos réponses sont toujours du genre : Désolé, mais nous on sait, on ne va pas étayer, croyez-nous sur parole, vous n'avez plus qu'à accepter & vous vous y ferez avec le temps, même si c'est nul (surtout si c'est nul ?).
Une de vos réponses a été de dire que le mode entrainement sans elo était le moyen le plus sûr de ne pas avoir de pénalité ... mais on s'en fout, qui s'en est plaint sur ce fil de discussion ? La seule réponse que j'ai lu de vous à ce sujet, c'est parce que vous deviez supprimer 10 à 12 parties bloquées par jour ... m'enfin, en mode normal ou entrainement, elles seront tout de même bloquées, non ? ... Votre problème ne sera pas résolu pour autant, si ? Le temps illimité en mode d'entraînement existe depuis longtemps, mais vous demandez-vous pourquoi on ne s'en servait déjà pas avant ? ... Pourquoi nous forcer à utiliser une chose qui nous semblait déjà par le passé inadapté ?

Tant que j'y suis, sur le nouveau lobby, je n'ai pas compris à quel moment je lançais une partie, si bien que j'en ai lancé une & créé deux autres, je n'ai pas trouvé comment inviter quelqu'un. Tout n'est pas aussi intuitif que vous le pensez. Sur une partie récente, j'ai limité la partie à "mes amis", pourtant, j'ai du expulser des "inconnus", comment ont-ils fait ? Un nouvel ami s'est inscrit, il a trouvé le nouveau lobby très laborieux, compliqué, je lui ai expliqué comment faire avec l'ancien, il est soulagé, car il était prêt à abandonner.

[jreakins]

I think that thier use of trick shows that they are still concerned with the possibility of people not finishing games they are lossing

I think our main concern is the time penalities and the ease of misclicking the eject a player that has gone over time limit

Fixing those issues could be done in two ways
Give us a very long time in turn base or make both time penalties and eject controllable by players at the table but more then a simple misclick

[Cotj]

So the official answer to this came down to.

This feature is being removed due to people getting "stuck" in a table 10-12 times a days.
So instead of fixing/modifying this feature for the few people that are getting stuck we are Nuking it?

Also Just play timed if you want ELO, but just play like it has no time limit? How does this change anything?

[Cotj]

Side Note:
I find it really funny that the mods locked down the original thread to this topic:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... &start=170

And link to the new one.

[DrDash]

It seems to me the customers don't like this. I don't. Is this site for competitive play, or for people to play games. People getting stuck seems to be mentioned a lot also, why not just make a really long timeout? 2 weeks a month to "clean up" these games.

I don't want to say the customer is always right, but when this many people disagree with a decision, maybe it should be reviewed. I play games with no time limit when I know I will be out during part of the time, camping, vacations etc. I make the game and tell everyone in the game, people not on my friends list.

I guess I don't understand fully why the change was made, or why it can not be changed back.