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

[nik592]

I am also still waiting for this to be reinstated.

[T72on1]

It's quite obvious that BGA is taking the easy approach here, and let this thread and the underlying issue silently fade away.

[Windrisen]

In theory, we are a community of customers and gamers who enjoy the service we get from this website.

In theory, as a community of customers, we'd be able to get answers from the site admins when we are displeased.

This seems like an easy problem to fix, and it does look like people are cancelling their premium memberships as a consequence of this decision by the admins. And I don't think it helps that the admins have decided to simply ignore this issue and pretend like it doesn't exist.

I don't think we'd have 25 pages of comments if this wasn't something significant to at least some players in this community.

We are still on the front page of the discussions, and have been since this forum started, so it isn't as if we are invisible.

We are simply being ignored. I hate to think that the only way to get any attention is to cancel our premium membership, but perhaps this business model doesn't need premium members anyway. Perhaps it isn't important to do simple things to keep customers happy.

All in all, this is very disappointing.

I really wish they'd listen and respond to our request.

[_sidh_]

I am also still waiting for this to be reinstated.

Ditto.

[LoudLibrarian]

Bring it BACK!!!!!

[Ceaseless]

Normally I like to read all the posts before posting, but there's a couple hundred here. Is this suggestion asking to reinstate rated games with no time limit, or is this for unrated only, which is what training mode is? I'm not familiar with how long training mode gives you, if it lets you log off and play another day or not, since I only play my games in one sitting and using training mode as essentially infinite time already.

[nik592]

ELO games, with friends, with no time limit. The issue that was raised as a problem was people getting "stuck" in no time limit games. This is because there also used to be a "real-time" no time limit setting, which then obviously prevented people from playing other real-time games. Turn-based games naturally die on their own after 40 days, and frankly, since it is friends only, if you have friends who abandon your game and make you wait it out, well, perhaps pick better people to friend. Even so, for most, one extra running game that you can basically ignore til it dies isn't going to impact anything.

There's been some discussion of ELO manipulation as a reason for removing the setting, however, one of the methods of overcoming it is to play with the longest time limit and then just live with the (time) penalties given if you happen to run over. Which means whatever exploit was there before is still there, though may net you some time penalties along the way (if indeed that exploitation was really happening all that much). And everyone says the time penalties don't REALLY matter (since they don't impact karma), so I can't imagine that anyone trying to exploit ELO is going to worry much about them. Hence, the only people it seems to punish are those who were using the setting legitimately and happen to run longer than 1 move per 2 days among friends.

[Fletcheese]

Unfortunately, because of the Forum pagination, a lot of readers do not see the previous admin answers, so here it is:

If you play a game without time limit, you cannot expel players. It also mean that you are "trapped" in the game if the others players cannot play. This is why "no time limit" should be only played in game with "no penalties" and "no ELO": this way, you can leave the game anytime without any damage to your reputation or rankings. And this is exactly what "training mode" provides: a safe way to play with "no time limit".

The problem with the players "trapped" in a game is a real thing: we did some statistics on it and this is happening, as an average 10 to 12 times each day. We even posted examples previously on this forum because some readers did not believe us.

We let the possibility, in "old" lobby, to play without time limit and without the ELO, and it was probably a mistake for the reason explained just before. This possibility has been removed now.

If you want to want to play with "no time limit", we now encourage you to play using "Training mode" ("infinite sign" in the new lobby), which is the safest way to play this way. >80% of the games without time limit were already played in "Training mode" before we did this change, so a huge majority of players already show their preference for this mode.

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.

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.

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.

There most definitely has been a response by admins. You can say you do not like this response, but it does exist.

[Ze Monstah]

There most definitely has been a response by admins. You can say you do not like this response, but it does exist.

I think most of the people here, are/were aware of the existence of that response.
By "no response", I think they meant "not a common ground response".

I am not sure how going literal after 6 days of silence in this thread, is helping anyone.

And really... with almost 26 pages of complaints... I am amazed that this issue wasn't brought back yet, since it's not supposed to be such a great deal (unless for other unknown reasons).

[Fletcheese]

There most definitely has been a response by admins. You can say you do not like this response, but it does exist.

I think most of the people here, are/were aware of the existence of that response.
By "no response", I think they meant "not a common ground response".

I am not sure how going literal after 6 days of silence in this thread, is helping anyone.

And really... with almost 26 pages of complaints... I am amazed that this issue wasn't brought back yet, since it's not supposed to be such a great deal (unless for other unknown reasons).

Can you describe succinctly why the admin's response is not acceptable? I genuinely do not understand. Is it specifically the last part about playing for ELO with unlimited time? Everything else is still possible on the platform just in slightly different ways as outlined in the post.