Time blindness, view of the clock, and expel button

[nik592]

I unsuccessfully tried getting a straight answer to this in that other thread (IYKYK). Why doesn't setting your game to a slow turn-based setting effectively tick all these boxes? Many people in that thread described a desire to play rated real-time games with friends with no clock. Well, if you're playing real-time, that suggests you plan on finishing in one session, even if that session is 4 or 5 hours long. So no one is ever going to run out of time if the game is set to 1 move every two days.

Worst case scenario is you have to extend to the next weekend. OK, in that case everyone is going to have 6 days in their time bank, so ONE person will have to make a move in the interim to avoid running out of time. Need to adjourn for two weeks? Only two people need to make a move to avoid running out of time before you meet up again.

We're not playing RT, we're playing TB. We always play at the slowest setting (1 turn per 2 days). Some people in our group only get online once a week. Yes, that slow of play isn't for everyone, but we're most of us quite busy between work and kids and sometimes it just happens. Or sometimes we try out a new game and it takes a while for people to be in the headspace to learn it, so you run your time bank down in the meantime. Either way, our group just accept that that's how our games run sometimes. We all understand that when you're playing in the wider community, such leniency isn't going to happen - and many of those who accrue the penalties don't play a lot in the wider community because their time (or their interest) is somewhat limited on here.

The way we play does tick all the boxes, EXCEPT it awards my friends who happen to play slower time penalties (and even sometimes me). As I say, people argue that time penalties mean nothing, but they obviously do just by existing. There are those who've acknowledge they use penalties to make a determination on whether to boot someone who has happened to run over time. But the penalties being awarded in our games aren't real - we'd happily set the timer longer if we could, and we don't care about each other running over time (well, mostly don't care, but if we do, we're more likely to ask the person directly to play their turns, but I've never even seen that happen).

[Jellby]

Warnings/marks are not penalties.

[BalGAmor]

Thanks for the discussion regarding timer visibility and expulsion mechanics. We hear your concerns.

Please note that strict timers and current expulsion rules are essential to protect the experience of theglobal, ranked community and prevent intentional stalling. And concerning friendly Mode, we want it to remain a dedicated space for games without Elo pressure or strict time constraints.

[FrankJones]

Just a random thought on friendly mode:

I sometimes create friendly mode open games (meaning, anyone can join).

But.....

Just because it's friendly mode doesn't mean I want someone to join and then make a move once every ten days. A game of Ark Nova shouldn't take a month. It's absurd.

Yes, I know I can quit anytime. That's not the point.

I wish we had an option to select some text from a drop-down menu when creating a friendly mode game, such as "preferred game pace [ .....]" and select from the standard turn-based speeds.

It's frustrating when someone joins the game (thus preventing anyone else from doing so", drafts ONE card, and then vanishes for days. Why ??? Let someone else join the game.

Yes, I realize the person isn't breaking any rules, but, come on.

[Ceaseless]

Well... friendly mode used to be available with Elo, but only among people who were actually friends on BGA. It was taken away for several reasons, one being that (apparently) people were abusing it in the way you say. But I've always found that a bit strange - if I started games with my friends, and they just refused to play anymore because they were losing, I'd probably stop agreeing to play no time limit games with them.

BGA deciding to skip that step and just stop it from happening in the first place is something I strongly agree with. BGA is fairly lenient when it comes to cheating, the sort of players you describe should be banned from the site, frankly. Still, at least it cut down one easy way for players to cheat.

And if you do happen to have friends who are cool with you abandoning a game when you're losing so you don't lose Elo, wouldn't that scenario also allow them to do the same for apparently minimal penalty (since those people also argue that no one cares about time penalties anyway)?

This is also known as cheating, so obviously, don't do that.

Personally, I still miss no timer, but still Elo, among friends. My IRL friend group play a bunch on here, and we don't care much about time limits. Some of us run over time pretty frequently, but we've all implicitly agreed not to kick each other. So a no time limit mode would suit us better (and did when it existed). But most of us would also like to play competitively (some of us only play amongst ourselves, but others, like me, also play in the wider community). People argued that playing with time limits and just ignoring when our friends run over time is the same thing - but it isn't, because you get those lovely time penalties (which mean little, but still something, or else they wouldn't be there). And if you do happen to have friends who are cool with you abandoning a game when you're losing so you don't lose Elo, wouldn't that scenario also allow them to do the same for apparently minimal penalty (since those people also argue that no one cares about time penalties anyway)?

I unsuccessfully tried getting a straight answer to this in that other thread (IYKYK). Why doesn't setting your game to a slow turn-based setting effectively tick all these boxes? Many people in that thread described a desire to play rated real-time games with friends with no clock. Well, if you're playing real-time, that suggests you plan on finishing in one session, even if that session is 4 or 5 hours long. So no one is ever going to run out of time if the game is set to 1 move every two days.

Worst case scenario is you have to extend to the next weekend. OK, in that case everyone is going to have 6 days in their time bank, so ONE person will have to make a move in the interim to avoid running out of time. Need to adjourn for two weeks? Only two people need to make a move to avoid running out of time before you meet up again.

We're not playing RT, we're playing TB. We always play at the slowest setting (1 turn per 2 days). Some people in our group only get online once a week. Yes, that slow of play isn't for everyone, but we're most of us quite busy between work and kids and sometimes it just happens. Or sometimes we try out a new game and it takes a while for people to be in the headspace to learn it, so you run your time bank down in the meantime. Either way, our group just accept that that's how our games run sometimes. We all understand that when you're playing in the wider community, such leniency isn't going to happen - and many of those who accrue the penalties don't play a lot in the wider community because their time (or their interest) is somewhat limited on here.

The way we play does tick all the boxes, EXCEPT it awards my friends who happen to play slower time penalties (and even sometimes me). As I say, people argue that time penalties mean nothing, but they obviously do just by existing. There are those who've acknowledge they use penalties to make a determination on whether to boot someone who has happened to run over time. But the penalties being awarded in our games aren't real - we'd happily set the timer longer if we could, and we don't care about each other running over time (well, mostly don't care, but if we do, we're more likely to ask the person directly to play their turns, but I've never even seen that happen).

This reads like the sort of thing friendly mode was made for in the first place. A lot of this doesn't really look like competitive playing, and there's nothing wrong with that, you don't need to put elo on the line. I will also note that elo isn't an absolute number, it's a relative pool. Isolated groupings are not a good thing for elo, you don't want closed pool issues. Frankly, there's even a case to be made for getting rid of rated invite games. It's one thing for top rated players to play against each other for points and the sake of having real games that are harder to get when random pairings are so mismatched, but things like friends setting up rated invites just screams problems. Doesn't matter as much when you have players honestly playing in the pool and filtering out irregularities, but the players that are just facing friends in rated wouldn't be doing that.

[Ceaseless]

Just a random thought on friendly mode:

I sometimes create friendly mode open games (meaning, anyone can join).

But.....

Just because it's friendly mode doesn't mean I want someone to join and then make a move once every ten days. A game of Ark Nova shouldn't take a month. It's absurd.

Yes, I know I can quit anytime. That's not the point.

I wish we had an option to select some text from a drop-down menu when creating a friendly mode game, such as "preferred game pace [ .....]" and select from the standard turn-based speeds.

It's frustrating when someone joins the game (thus preventing anyone else from doing so", drafts ONE card, and then vanishes for days. Why ??? Let someone else join the game.

Yes, I realize the person isn't breaking any rules, but, come on.

I wouldn't mind friendly mode with timers. You use the same overtime rules as rated play, however no elo or reputation is lost for getting expelled, nor would you get a time penalty for going overtime.

On a semi-related note, it might also be nice if BGA added a mode where players are automatically lossed for going over time, but no not get any additional penalty for such a loss. No extra elo loss, reputation loss, or even a timer hit.

[FrankJones]

On a semi-related note, it might also be nice if BGA added a mode where players are automatically lossed for going over time, but no not get any additional penalty for such a loss. No extra elo loss, reputation loss, or even a timer hit.

Agreed. A buddy of mine started a game and I'm not sure what happened exactly, but he got expelled at turn 1, at 1%.

This was a 20 Elo loss, plus the extra 10, plus minus 38 arena points. Seems excessive to me.

[FrankJones]

I also noticed something:

When I create the friendly table of Ark Nova, it says, partly in bold font, "the expected time to complete this game is 3.1 days. By clicking "join" you are acknowledging this." Or something like that.

[tbhp]

On a semi-related note, it might also be nice if BGA added a mode where players are automatically lossed for going over time, but no not get any additional penalty for such a loss. No extra elo loss, reputation loss, or even a timer hit.

That should remain just a mode though, rather than something that can be applied to tournaments. It’s a pretty fundamental right that a player can decide if they want to take a win or not.

You could have a toggle that can be switched to say you want your opponent to be automatically expelled if they go out of time. But it should never be decided without your consent.

[nik592]

Warnings/marks are not penalties.

OK, fair, I used the wrong word. But you knew the thing I was talking about.

Well... friendly mode used to be available with Elo, but only among people who were actually friends on BGA. It was taken away for several reasons, one being that (apparently) people were abusing it in the way you say. But I've always found that a bit strange - if I started games with my friends, and they just refused to play anymore because they were losing, I'd probably stop agreeing to play no time limit games with them.

BGA deciding to skip that step and just stop it from happening in the first place is something I strongly agree with. BGA is fairly lenient when it comes to cheating, the sort of players you describe should be banned from the site, frankly. Still, at least it cut down one easy way for players to cheat.

And if you do happen to have friends who are cool with you abandoning a game when you're losing so you don't lose Elo, wouldn't that scenario also allow them to do the same for apparently minimal penalty (since those people also argue that no one cares about time penalties anyway)?

This is also known as cheating, so obviously, don't do that.

You're saying BGA removed Friendly with Elo mode to stop the cheating from happening, even though a completely valid way to keep doing what they were doing exists? That was my point. Sure, if you're going to make it impossible for people to do that, fair enough. But typically, you tighten rules and the people who want to break them find another way, while the people who were following them as intended just get inconvenienced.

We're not playing RT, we're playing TB. We always play at the slowest setting (1 turn per 2 days). Some people in our group only get online once a week. Yes, that slow of play isn't for everyone, but we're most of us quite busy between work and kids and sometimes it just happens. Or sometimes we try out a new game and it takes a while for people to be in the headspace to learn it, so you run your time bank down in the meantime. Either way, our group just accept that that's how our games run sometimes. We all understand that when you're playing in the wider community, such leniency isn't going to happen - and many of those who accrue the penalties don't play a lot in the wider community because their time (or their interest) is somewhat limited on here.

The way we play does tick all the boxes, EXCEPT it awards my friends who happen to play slower time penalties (and even sometimes me). As I say, people argue that time penalties mean nothing, but they obviously do just by existing. There are those who've acknowledge they use penalties to make a determination on whether to boot someone who has happened to run over time. But the penalties being awarded in our games aren't real - we'd happily set the timer longer if we could, and we don't care about each other running over time (well, mostly don't care, but if we do, we're more likely to ask the person directly to play their turns, but I've never even seen that happen).

This reads like the sort of thing friendly mode was made for in the first place. A lot of this doesn't really look like competitive playing, and there's nothing wrong with that, you don't need to put elo on the line. I will also note that elo isn't an absolute number, it's a relative pool. Isolated groupings are not a good thing for elo, you don't want closed pool issues. Frankly, there's even a case to be made for getting rid of rated invite games. It's one thing for top rated players to play against each other for points and the sake of having real games that are harder to get when random pairings are so mismatched, but things like friends setting up rated invites just screams problems. Doesn't matter as much when you have players honestly playing in the pool and filtering out irregularities, but the players that are just facing friends in rated wouldn't be doing that.

I've heard this, and while I understand the concept, if I'm not on the top of the leaderboard (or anywhere near it), does it matter? I mean, I get it, someone could just play their games against a weaker pool of opponents to try and get their ranking higher than it really should be. But don't people do that anyway with red thumbs against top players for example? Again my point is that I acknowledge that done for reasons of leaderboard manipulation, that's not ok. But blocking one way to do it but leaving others open seems an odd choice.

The other point is either you play in the wider community or you don't. If you play in the wider community, your Elo will be adjusted by those games (in addition to the ones played in your narrower pool). If you don't, then does it matter?

I'm not the kind of player who will dedicate enough time to a single game (or have the raw talent to just figure it out within a handful of games) to ever have high Elo for any game. Elo gives me a rough idea of my skill. If I'm under 100, I obviously haven't played that game much (or I'm just REALLY bad at it). If I'm in the 100s, I'm just ok. If I'm in the 200s, I'm reasonable at that game. If I'm in the 300s, maybe I actually do have a few skills. I don't think I have any games in the 300s at present, though I have once or twice. But it does help me to place myself against other players and to generally know where my skills are at. My husband and I play Memoir '44 against each other - we're working our way through all the maps. We only play each other, so I know my Elo is likely not reflective in the greater pool. But because we're only playing against each other, the pool of Elo we access is very limited too. What it does is let me know where we stand against each other in the series of games. I understand that's not necessarily the intention of Elo, but if I'm sitting at rank 1000+ (or more, I don't even know where I'd be, but it would be LOW), does anyone care what's going on with my Elo?