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

[ufm]

Have you read the Goodbye of sourisdudesert? https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30848

He wrote:
"A specific social organization is not going very well at the moment: representative democracy.
I have created a new mobile app, Baztille, which make it possible to infiltrate representative democracy to allow citizens to participate directly to decisions affecting them. Each week, you vote and take collectively a decision for your country, your area or your city."

How about representative democracy on BGA?

Companies don't work that way. Don't be too snarky.

Anyway, this 'no time limit, but with ELO change' had to go eventually as overtime players are not kicked out automatically so friends can keep the game going on, and this is still prone to abuse even with 'friends only' limit and some dudes proved it.

There is a very real side effect of a player running over time. They get a time penalty marker showing in the stats of their profile.

Honestly, if they play that slow and get a bunch of penalty markers even in 1 move/2 days tables, then other general players should be able to avoid those players for obvious reasons.

This change does not in any way prevent players from abusing the ELO system.

It in fact did. Using multiple accounts is very obvious to detect and punish.
In contrast, abusing this 'feature' is more insidious and managed to evade the eyes of the moderators/admins for long time.

[cigma]

In contrast, abusing this 'feature' is more insidious and managed to evade the eyes of the moderators/admins for long time.

What is this "abuse" you are talking about?

[Jellby]

I'm guessing it would be never finishing a game you're going to lose, so it will eventually be cancelled and not count against your ELO. If you only finish the games you win, then your ELO can only go up.

[T72on1]

So, many players have to suffer the consequences now because of the abuse of a minority of players. Definitely the right thing to do, yes ...

[ufm]

So, many players have to suffer the consequences now because of the abuse of a minority of players. Definitely the right thing to do, yes ...

A dude even got himself in the top 5 of the XP leaderboard thanks to this 'feature'.
Not to mention less evident other 'minority of players' and unfair 'consequences' for the opponents who actually should have won the games. Enough said.

[nik592]

I'm guessing it would be never finishing a game you're going to lose, so it will eventually be cancelled and not count against your ELO. If you only finish the games you win, then your ELO can only go up.

A dude even got himself in the top 5 of the XP leaderboard thanks to this 'feature'.
Not to mention less evident other 'minority of players' and unfair 'consequences' for the opponents who actually should have won the games. Enough said.

So is this not still possible? The only difference is now they also get time penalties on their profile.

Sure, players can boot them, but the No Time Limit was restricted to only friends (and is what people are asking to be reinstated). One assumes if people were colluding with friends (or multiple accounts) to achieve this, they can still do so, as their "friends" won't boot them, surely? I mean, if you were annoyed by your friends starting NTL games and not finishing them, surely you just wouldn't join NTL with those people anymore? And if you don't care, then nothing has changed...

[Jellby]

If you're expelled, you get a time penalty *and* ELO loss.

[nik592]

Yes, if you're expelled. But given that NTL was previously only for friends only, for a player to exploit that, they would need to have been playing against their friends. If my friend quit playing a game halfway through, I'd be like, what's happening? And if they either didn't respond, or said, yeah, I'm not going to finish cause I don't want the ELO loss, I'd not play NTL with them again. If I'm a friend who is happy to support my friend either ghosting on my games or rigging the system through no ELO loss, then I'll continue doing that even if there's now the option for me to boot them. So in the latter case, people are still being able to exploit no ELO loss, they just also get a time penalty.

Or are we saying that people would just friend every person they came across, challenge them to games and then ghost if losing? Personally, I'd likely turn down a random friend request, and definitely turn down a random NTL game request from some stranger who'd friended me out of the blue. And I'd expect a majority of people are probably like that.

[araujoarthur0]

I'm still very sad about this lost feature.
I was just playing Decrypto with my real life friends and we were having a blast but all of us ended up with the penalty symbols for no reason, given we were all ok with the time we took for the game.
This just detracts from the previous experience we used to have in this amazing website.

[GTSchemer]

I'm still very sad about this lost feature.
I was just playing Decrypto with my real life friends and we were having a blast but all of us ended up with the penalty symbols for no reason, given we were all ok with the time we took for the game.
This just detracts from the previous experience we used to have in this amazing website.

Just to help understand your use case, is there any reason you didn't use the "Friendly" mode for your friends? That would provide the same experience but no penalty symbols.