Board Game Arena

Due to automatic abandonment after 40 days of inactivity, no time limit setting can be abused easily by indefinitely delaying losing games.
Even now it is turned up to eleven blatantly. Just check the profile of current hall of fame #4.
That user was moderated due to multiple self-playing in Arena mode, and then resorts to this.
In a way this is far worse than self-playing, cause opponents are stuck with delayed games and/or denied wins.
The option says 'recommended with friends only'. Friendly games are covered by Training mode already, so why leave this feature untouched?

Perhaps friends like to play with ELO on?

If you don't like playing people who abuse it, perhaps take the advice and only play it with people you know and trust (i.e. friends)

Lotus Blossom wrote: ↑29 July 2021, 01:02 Perhaps friends like to play with ELO on?

Even with 'friends like to play with ELO on' the setting is worthless to keep.
If all participants were indeed playing so 'friendly' they wouldn't expel each other regardless of time limit, right?
The process is manual, not automatic unlike '40 days of inactivity' abandonment.

Lotus Blossom wrote: ↑29 July 2021, 01:02 If you don't like playing people who abuse it, perhaps take the advice and only play it with people you know and trust (i.e. friends)

I never use that setting. Have you ever used it? Training mode and 1 move/2 days (+time jokers probably) are enough in almost all games.
There are plenty of BGA users who didn't notice the setting at all, until they faced the forementioned abuser.
It is rarely used and does more harm than good.

ufm wrote: ↑29 July 2021, 01:21 Even with 'friends like to play with ELO on' the setting is worthless to keep.
If all participants were indeed playing so 'friendly' they wouldn't expel each other regardless of time limit, right?

The timer is annoying and stressing (especially for the sound it makes when you reach low time).
The banner "you can kick out this player" is especially annoying as you can't dismiss it.
It might even spam you with emails under some settings.

I respectfully disagree on that, as far as I'm concerned, this is a good Quality of Life feature.

I'd say that a good half of my games recently use this setting the % change depending on whether I play with strangers or not, and whether some of my friends have high ELO or not not. But usually everyone is below 100 ELO since we're discovering a new game together, so we play with it enabled so that our ELO reflect better our actual level for when we will later play with strangers.

MoiMagnus wrote: ↑29 July 2021, 10:22 I'd say that a good half of my games recently use this setting the % change depending on whether I play with strangers or not, and whether some of my friends have high ELO or not not. But usually everyone is below 100 ELO since we're discovering a new game together, so we play with it enabled so that our ELO reflect better our actual level for when we will later play with strangers.

I just checked your game record and ALL of your games in 2021 didn't require 'no time limit' setting at all, regardless of actual timer setting.
Every game was played within 1 move/day rate, which is the usual turn-based time limit.
So your argument is actually a strong evidence of 'no time limit' essentially doing nothing while playing in good faith.
Unless BGA expands Arena mode's 'play your oldest game first' rule for every game (like Yucata), this abuse is bound to happen.

ufm wrote: ↑29 July 2021, 12:06 I just checked your game record and ALL of your games in 2021 didn't require 'no time limit' setting at all, regardless of actual timer setting.
Every game was played within 1 move/day rate, which is the usual turn-based time limit.
So your argument is actually a strong evidence of 'no time limit' essentially doing nothing while playing in good faith.
Unless BGA expands Arena mode's 'play your oldest game first' rule for every game (like Yucata), this abuse is bound to happen.

As I said, for me this setting is purely a QOL setting:
+ It allows for Real Time Game with no time limit. Turn-Based games are very impractical to set up, as as soon as someone accepted to join the table, you can't change the settings anymore. (Plus Turn-based games send emails to everyone, which both can clutter some mailing boxes, and spoil the result of the game by sending an email immediately while the score have yet to be revealed at the end of the game)
+ It removes the timer from the interface

I'm contesting the fact that it is doing nothing positive. I'm not contesting the fact that negative might be greater than the positive.
Though I've just realised that I only care about the "no time limit" of "real time game", which is limited by the same restriction as every "real time game": you can only have one of them active at once (which drastically reduces potential abuses).

Maybe limiting it to players who have each other added as friends might be a way to solve this? Forbid joining for everyone that isn't reciprocal friend.

Removing only turn-based no time limit setting and renaming current real-time 'no time limit' setting as something like 'longer time limit' (the game will be abandoned after 12 hours of inactivity, so this is actually nowhere near 'no time limit'), or limiting turn-based no time limit to reciprocal friends as Silene's suggestion might be good alternatives, I guess.
If the setting somehow does not get removed, at least automatic abandon should count as a loss for the player who is most responsible for the delay, like Arena mode.

Yeah I sometimes play "no time limit" with friends because every once in a while we'll get sidetracked and start talking about tangents for a long time, sometimes even giving up the game for the night and coming back to it a few days later. And yes with prefer playing with ELO enabled unless it's a new game we're learning... no ELO means no point in trying to win.

That being said, I'd be okay with it being limited to playing with players added as friends.

Created a suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=47043