Table Host Custom and other question

[EuroGamez]

Not sure if this is intended or a bug. So starting here qith a question:

Chosing the setup style "Table Host Custom" only gives me the error "only availabale in friendly mode" but chosing "friendly mode" gives me the error "not supported" I am sure I have spectated a liev game with "Table Host Custom" setup though. Did this change, or am I misremembering, or am I doing somehting wrong?


Another thing:

If I go to turn-based, and make a table in friendly mode. Then go back to "real-time" I can no longer create a table and get the error message: "Real-time friendly mode not supported". To be able to open a real-time tabla again. I have to go back to turnbased. Open a table, change the setting back to "normal mode", then quit that game and switch back to Real-Time. This seems very strange that it should lock you in this loop. Maybe this can't be fixed as it's a site problem? Asking here before posting a bug report.

[GTSchemer]

Not sure if this is intended or a bug. So starting here qith a question:

Chosing the setup style "Table Host Custom" only gives me the error "only availabale in friendly mode" but chosing "friendly mode" gives me the error "not supported" I am sure I have spectated a liev game with "Table Host Custom" setup though. Did this change, or am I misremembering, or am I doing somehting wrong?


Another thing:

If I go to turn-based, and make a table in friendly mode. Then go back to "real-time" I can no longer create a table and get the error message: "Real-time friendly mode not supported". To be able to open a real-time tabla again. I have to go back to turnbased. Open a table, change the setting back to "normal mode", then quit that game and switch back to Real-Time. This seems very strange that it should lock you in this loop. Maybe this can't be fixed as it's a site problem? Asking here before posting a bug report.

I forgot to mention that in the recent update thread, sorry about that. Table Host Custom was originally supposed to be friendly mode only, since it allows wildly varying customized setup. Unfortunately, that was not noticed and fixed until this update.

So friendly mode being required is intended, but only for Table Host Custom.


What is unfortunate is that yes, to my knowledge there is an invisible "real-time friendly mode" that can be used unless games block it, which TI4 does. If someone gets a game started with "real-time friendly mode" active, it will be deleted after 4 hours of inactivity, just like a normal real-time table. You can imagine how frustrating this would be for players who do not see a timer, yet have their game deleted.

If this has been fixed let me know, but to my latest knowledge it is still a BGA site issue which is why real-time friendly is blocked during TI4 game creation.

Long story short, in the Play Now lobby, change to normal turn-based mode first, then choose friendly mode, and then you can use custom setup.

[GTSchemer]

If you want to vote on the bug report, it appears this is still live: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=21294

It appears a different report was marked as fixed so maybe the bad real-time friendly state can only be reached from the Play Now lobby system.

[EuroGamez]

Thanks for the swift answer. Only thing I am still left wondering is why is it not possible to play "real-time" friendly mode then? I have no inention of not finishing games within 4 hours of inactivity.

Playing in turn-based makes it impossible to find opponents who would like to play real time, but friendly.

[GTSchemer]

Thanks for the swift answer. Only thing I am still left wondering is why is it not possible to play "real-time" friendly mode then? I have no inention of not finishing games within 4 hours of inactivity.

Playing in turn-based makes it impossible to find opponents who would like to play real time, but friendly.

If I recall correctly there has been a large amount of discussion on that and similar topics over the years on BGA. I'll check later and see if I can link it.

[tarongot]

So friendly mode being required is intended, but only for Table Host Custom.

That is terrible news. Sorry but whose idea that is? Yes friendly mode can be used to make very unfair maps, but also can be used to make many different maps, option that is now unavailable.
I can now forget of creating and testing my own maps, because that option is not available now. Forget not only about different balanced maps, something that in player's made maps option is rarely possible, but also forget about thematic maps.

That is very, very bad decision and I hope whoever made it, will change theirs mind about it.

[GTSchemer]

So friendly mode being required is intended, but only for Table Host Custom.

That is terrible news. Sorry but whose idea that is? Yes friendly mode can be used to make very unfair maps, but also can be used to make many different maps, option that is now unavailable.
I can now forget of creating and testing my own maps, because that option is not available now. Forget not only about different balanced maps, something that in player's made maps option is rarely possible, but also forget about thematic maps.

That is very, very bad decision and I hope whoever made it, will change theirs mind about it.

It is available, just not for elo. Which makes some sense, making very different custom maps with one's friends is not really comparable using the elo system.

If you like I can inquire with the BGA dev contact to see if I am allowed to modify this, just in case.

[tarongot]

So friendly mode being required is intended, but only for Table Host Custom.

That is terrible news. Sorry but whose idea that is? Yes friendly mode can be used to make very unfair maps, but also can be used to make many different maps, option that is now unavailable.
I can now forget of creating and testing my own maps, because that option is not available now. Forget not only about different balanced maps, something that in player's made maps option is rarely possible, but also forget about thematic maps.

That is very, very bad decision and I hope whoever made it, will change theirs mind about it.

It is available, just not for elo. Which makes some sense, making very different custom maps with one's friends is not really comparable using the elo system.

If you like I can inquire with the BGA dev contact to see if I am allowed to modify this, just in case.

Yes I would like that. And here is my proposal in BGA system, maybe more people will like that too: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=244835

[GTSchemer]

Thanks for the swift answer. Only thing I am still left wondering is why is it not possible to play "real-time" friendly mode then? I have no inention of not finishing games within 4 hours of inactivity.

Playing in turn-based makes it impossible to find opponents who would like to play real time, but friendly.

Here is the very large suggestion page with discussion over the years. It also has links to a large forum thread or two. https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=78071

I will note that some of the stuff discussed in there may have changed since then, but that's the historical background.

[EuroGamez]

Sorry I am just more confused after reading all that.

In other games like Agricola it's no problem at all to host a Friendly Mode real time game. I do that sometimes when I wanna play with silly settigns that make the game very luck based. I am not the only one. There is of course no ELO for Friendly Mode and there shouldn't be any.

But why am I not able to do that for TI4? Sometimes people just wanna play casually with no ELO and pick otherwise unplayable factions etc. It's more fun to do so when you know you can quit at any time and winning doen't actually make any difference (in ELO terms).

Would be great if we were allowed to do that for TI4 as well. Is there anything preventing that from happening right now?