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

[Orctavius]

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.

As the OP of the original thread, I have no objection to this being made the primary thread as this thread's OP does a much better job making the case than I did.

[znajder]

The possibility to be trapped however only existed in a real-time-setup of the game

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

Could you please explain in what way this is not true? And in what way players in a Turn Based table can be stuck, because I think a lot of us are failing to understand how this happening. Or perhaps phrased differently, what is your definition of "being stuck" in a Turn Based table?

If I launch a No Time Limit Turn Based game with a group of players, and one of them stop playing after a day..
* I will still be able to access all my other ongoing games to play those
* I will still receive notifications for when it is my turn in all my ongoing games
* I will still be able to create or join a real-time game to play
* I will still be able to create or join any number of other turn based games
* I will have the table automatically removed from my list of active tables after 40 days
* BGA staff does not need to take any action as the table is automatically removed after 40 days

As far as I can see, there is NO impact to my ability to use the full feature set of BGA during this 40 day time period.

In what way am I stuck?
In what way is the scenario above a concern for BGA?

[HmmJustABox]

Everything worth saying has already been said here as well as or better than I can say it. I just want to show my support for bring back the no time life/friends only games.

My group almost exclusively plays this way, and now it's gone. We love the site, but there are times when some of us do not check our turns for a few days. We don't want to play on practice mode with no ELO scores.

There has to be a better solution than this.

[znajder]

I have created a bug report with a final statement of this discussion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=78071 Please vote for it!

Great! I hope everyone reading this thread will go in and vote!

[cigma]

The possibility to be trapped however only existed in a real-time-setup of the game

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

Could you please explain in what way this is not true? And in what way players in a Turn Based table can be stuck, because I think a lot of us are failing to understand how this happening. Or perhaps phrased differently, what is your definition of "being stuck" in a Turn Based table?

I've got the same questions.

[Miftis]

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.

This falls flat when you encourage everyone to not expel people and then it's a no time limit game anyway that people don't have to play for weeks. If this statement was true you would be implementing automatic game timeouts that end a game immediately when someone times out. If the trick you're referring to is the ELO cheating letting a game abandon rather than finish there have been many good suggestions about dealing with this issue in different ways and I find it sad that admin appears to be taking the ignore it and it will go away approach instead of a little more discussion on different solutions. I guess 20 % of no time limit Elo players potentially leaving the site is too small a minority to be cared about.

To recap a few of my suggestions
- Games do not abandon, if it is inactive the inactive player loses. ( if this change is because of ELO cheating)
- A further warning when creating games that warns of being "stuck in games" for 4 hours for real time games 30days for turn based and admin will not intervene. (If this change is because of having to intervene cancelling games, which I understand you don't want to have to and don't think you ever should have been doing.)
- Instead of no time limit, 1 move in 30 days for turn based, and 1 move every 4 hours for real time(Would fix both ELO cheating and Time pressure issues for most people.)

I would love to have a direct response from admin why these suggestions or suggestions by others on here are not solutions to a change us "small minority" of people really are upset about.

[Jmz]

+1 on this. Exactly as many other posters I am a premium member who plays mainly with friend with no time limit. I was using the play now option to continue to use this until you stopped that as well.
I've read the admin posts and I'm not sure I see the problem having people who join an non time limited game get stuck. Do the non timing out games affect the website's resources in some way making it less effective for other games?
I'm also unclear how this is an ELO exploit that needs patching up - there are way more effective ways to cheat ELO if one is so inclined. If one of my friends decided to not complete the game to prop up their ELO they would not get invited back to a non time limit game.
The main concern that seems to be aired amongst the posters in the penalty given for breaching a time limit. I don't have first hand experience with this, but it seems to be applied regardless of whether the player is booted, is that the case? Is it possible to only apply the negative karma if the missing the deadline results in the board's admin actually booting the player. That way the timeout would not negatively affect people for whom life got in the way of a board game. You could add an auto boot option (default on) to get the same effect as you have now and allow friends who do not want to use a penalising time limit the option to not penalise as well

[Silene]

The main concern that seems to be aired amongst the posters in the penalty given for breaching a time limit. I don't have first hand experience with this, but it seems to be applied regardless of whether the player is booted, is that the case?

No, that's not the case. The effect when you go out of time but don't get expelled is (a) you don't get the usual +1 karma for the finished game (b) you have a note on your profile with a clock-symbol for 60 days.

You do not get a karma-penalty or be considered having lost the game just because you were over the time limit. That happens only when an opponnent chooses to expel you from the game.

I think the effect on your chances to join games later (which some people have brought up as a big impact) is almost non-existent and people are a bit overreacting about some clock-shaped-pixels on their profile. However I do agree that it is seriously annoying to permanently have a prompt that asks you whether you want to expel the out-of-time-player that is your friend. Also the implicit message to have done something wrong that is sent to players for being over time and the question that might arise "Are we really that good friends that they really won't kick me? Is that also true for my game-hosting-friend's friend, who is also at the table? Do they expect me to speed up and I am a burden to them?" can make people nervous and uncomfortable during the game and when permanantly feeling uncomfortable on BGA might drive them away. Maybe sound-effect is also relevant there (I don't know as I have all sounds off) - although those can be configured in your options as well as switching off the annoying mails notifying you about an out-of-time-player.

I think giving back the NTL option for turn-based would be a good move here. I'm not buying the alleged proof that turn-based games in the past had people trapped - the fact that people voluntarily left such games does not prove that they had to do so in order to "untrap" themselves. There are also time-limited tables where people voluntarily quit the game for whatever reason and take the penalty and there's nothing that has to be done about that either (unless there is a technical issue for that which I guess most of the time is not the case).

Alternatively I think an additional more relaxed time setting like 1move/2weeks or at least 1move/week would seriously help out most of the players who were affected by the change.

[Jmz]

No, that's not the case. The effect when you go out of time but don't get expelled is (a) you don't get the usual +1 karma for the finished game (b) you have a note on your profile with a clock-symbol for 60 days.

You do not get a karma-penalty or be considered having lost the game just because you were over the time limit. That happens only when an opponnent chooses to expel you from the game.

Thanks for clarifying,Silene, I was sure I was misunderstanding something.

[Philoupino]

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

Could you please explain in what way this is not true? And in what way players in a Turn Based table can be stuck, because I think a lot of us are failing to understand how this happening. Or perhaps phrased differently, what is your definition of "being stuck" in a Turn Based table?

I've got the same questions.

I also have the same questions...

And I am quite surprised (better said upset) to see that 18 pages (!) corresponding to 175 messages in the previous discussion
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28186
have just been closed and unanswered whereas most of them were raising true problems, interesting arguments and real questions...
And that many of them were from people writing for the first time in the forum saying this change was really harmful for the way they used to enjoy BGA