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

[T72on1]

Almost 9 pages of comments already. And probably a multitude of people who agree but don't use the forums. I wonder how much longer it will take before we finally get this back. At least I still hope that eventually we will get it back.

[dralkyr]

My wife and I are very annoyed at this change and I didn't realize until today reading the forum that this was actually an intentional change. I hate the new Game Setup system and this is the biggest reason. We primarily play games the two of us and with all the other needs of life No Time Limit was the best. I play with much greater frequency so have never suffered a Delay penalty, but she is currently suffering a delay penalty on all 3 games we have because this was taken away. Not cool. Not cool at all.

[dralkyr]

If you really want to play with an ELO gain/loss after your game, we now encourage you to create a Turn based game with the slowest speed (1 move every 2 days). If you were used to use "Normal mode + no time limit", it makes practically no difference: even if some of your opponents goes over their time limit (which is pretty high), you are absolutely not forced to expel them. However, the improvement compared to the previous situation is that you still have the possibility to expel a non-playing player in case it is needed.

My wife and I with our friends have only ever played on "Normal mode + no time limit" since we bought Premium. We now have made a few games since the change to "1 move every 2 days" and unfortunately people are suffering delay penalties and getting very annoyed. This is not an "improvement".

Summary

• We did NOT remove the possibility to play with "no time limit" (or with friends)
• If you want to continue to play with no time limit, please use Training mode and there will be no timer.
• If you want to have low pressure but still want an ELO gain, please use Turn based with the slowest speed.

For all useful intents and purposes you DID remove the possibility. My wife's entire ELO comes from "Normal mode + no time limit" and a lot of mine does, as well.

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.

It wasn't a trick. Get off your high horse. After years and years of allowing this with no announcement that this may change or wasn't intentional, this is *. There was no "mistake," don't you dare make us out to be the bad guys here. ELO has always applied to "this category of games." I don't see a single thread praising this change.

Summary

• This is not an improvement
• For all practical use, you did remove the possibility. Don't hide behind these lies
• Don't call the preferred method of play for many, many people for years a mistake
• There was no "trick," we weren't trying to "game the system." we just want to play games when it fits our life instead of letting you dictate what is acceptable
• Also, locking the other thread was inappropriate because the two things are NOT the same

*Moderator edit: please remember that BGA is a family-friendly platform.

[marta_night]

*Moderator edit: please remember that BGA is a family-friendly platform.

So you DO read, you just choose to ignore the voice of your community. Both threads are amongst most read and trending - combined even more so. We ask you to please do something about it, without responding with the same arguments that solve nothing.

[OscarBricks]

I was a premium member for three years. I want to be able to play correspondence Wingspan, the same way I would play correspondence chess, with some friends. I know it's going to be a bit clunky with pink powers and stuff, but we can cope with that. What we have instead is the game setup interface with two game mode options saying "no time limit" both of which are impossible to select, because they both tell you to switch to training mode, and then a training mode which cancels the game after 1 hour of inactivity. If the site operators were trying to troll players or waste their time they could hardly do much better than this.

[dschingis27]

What we have instead is the game setup interface with two game mode options saying "no time limit" both of which are impossible to select, because they both tell you to switch to training mode, and then a training mode which cancels the game after 1 hour of inactivity.

If you select "Turn-Based" as a first step and THEN switch to training mode, you have 40 days to play a game. So it's still possible.

But yes, it is confusing that if you don't select "Turn-Based" first, and you select a so called "No Time Limit" game, that this game cancels out after a few hours. I would at least change the naming here, add a warning, or make the training mode automatically always the 40 days variant.

[Silene]

I think the problem with Training mode and previous NTL game are somewhat similar. The game setup for Game speed shows various settings for speed with some being Turn-based and some being Real-time. As shown in the drop-down menu here:



So what has been the problem with previously existing NTL was that it didn't say right there whether it was a real-time thing or a turn-based thing. Because as you can see in the drop-down menu (where the non-functional option is still listed), there's no 2 different versions for RT and TB but just one line without saying which it is. So people assumed there is just one version. But it wasn't true and the only way to see it was to look at the top row and check the color on this:



If it was green - because you previously had selected real-time lobby (or had played real-time before) - then you might get into the wrong setting without noticing and I think that's what has caused trouble which ultimately lead to admins deciding to remove the option alltogether even though it probably would've been enough to make it TB only.

So with people who had played NTL before are now switching to Training mode, a similar problem occurs and it's even more subtle:



This doesn't even show any time setting, as it is training mode. However the colored green/brown arrow on top is still there which indicates that probably there's still a marker on the table somewhere for it to be TB or RT with the according behaviour like
* table-time-out after time of inactivity while the game on the table is in progress (I think a few hours for RT vs. 40 days for TB)
* table-setup-cancellation when the table doesn't fill soon enough before it starts (I think ~1hr for RT vs. 1-2 days or so for TB)
* blocking of starting other RT tables if it is running in RT
* maybe max number of TB tables is affected?
* getting different kinds of push-notifications, mails, end-of-game-notifications

Apparently people who wanted to play long-term NTL games who somehow get into a RT-training mode now seem to be stuck with some restrictions that are from these RT-table-side-effects. The swap from RT to TB cannot be done in place at the table when training mode is selected. Instead you need to go back to "play now", select Turn-based there and then re-create your table.
Or well... I think it is possible on the table if you change back to normal mode, then select any TB setting and then switch back to training mode. (I think this might be solved a bit better on the new game-page-interface as the button to change between RT/TB stays there. But well - that comes with other problems so I'll stick to my usual workflow for now.)

[Silene]

...

You have some great points and good logic there!
But the suggestion to allow kicking someone from a rated game who is not out of time makes no sense...

[dschingis27]

I was merely trying to suggest and point out that if it were a reason for this blanket change, it could have been achieved separately, and therefore does not justify the wholesale change. I didn't state an opinion on whether it made any sense (and probably agree that it doesn't).

If you only provide an alternative that does not make sense, you are not proving the point that there is a (reasonable) alternative.

[Jellby]

But the suggestion to allow kicking someone from a rated game who is not out of time makes no sense...

It is supposed to be used with friends only. I would actually go one step further and make everyone lose ELO in such a case:

- Rated NTL available only with friends.
- Any player can expel any other player at any time.
- Quitting the game or being expelled carries the usual ELO and karma penalties.
- Expelling another player means losing ELO for all players (including those who were not expelled or didn't expel).

If you join a rated NTL with not-really-friends-just-random-strangers-whose-friendship-request-you-accepted and get hit by these unfair penalties, that'll hopefully teach you.