Board Game Arena

Why isn't there a non-ranked mode option? Training mode doesn't count. It's exhausting how most players treat every game like it's a world championship match. I'm just trying to relax and have fun here. Many games are rushed to the end or played extremely aggressive/toxic. I don't care about my rating and I'm shocked that most people do here.

It is called Friendly mode. You can set your tables to it. No ranking or timer

YouAllAreCowards wrote: ↑08 February 2026, 13:28 Training mode doesn't count.

What do you mean by that? What was once called training mode on BGA is now called friendly mode, which yodamus has mentioned.

If you are not satisfied by friendly mode, I don't understand what you are looking for.

cigma wrote: ↑08 February 2026, 15:34

YouAllAreCowards wrote: ↑08 February 2026, 13:28 Training mode doesn't count.

What do you mean by that? What was once called training mode on BGA is now called friendly mode, which yodamus has mentioned.

If you are not satisfied by friendly mode, I don't understand what you are looking for.

Sounds like they just want to hide the rankings which is understandable. They also are associating toxic behavior they encounter to the ranking system.

In friendly mode your opponent can take all the time they want and there’s nothing holding them back from quitting. So I guess a mode w/ a timer & karma system but no rankings.

That's a good option. Right now we have two choices:

1) Ranked (rated) games and timers and Elo and Karma, or
2) Unranked (unrated), no timers, no Elo, no Karma.

Perhaps we should have
3) Timers, Karma, but unranked (unrated), no Elo.

While I feel playing casual with Elo is easily possible in the games I mostly like, I think this might be a thing in games which have a distinctly different casual play style and a competitive play stile, like Carcassonne, Patchwork and Azul. So it might be a good thing to have something like that.

YouAllAreCowards wrote: ↑08 February 2026, 13:28 Many games are rushed to the end or played extremely aggressive/toxic.

You can avoid those players by giving them a red thumb in their player profile. Or by making friends on BGA with people you enjoy playing with, and only play with them.

If those toxic players are insulting, discriminatory, or similar, please report them via their player profile.

Playing non-friendly without elo would defeat the purpose of elo: it's not about a rankings, it's about evaluating skill. If you're going to play "serious" (i.e. with time limits, no quitting, etc.) then it should affect elo accordingly. If you don't care about the rankings, don't pay attention to them. If other players bother you, report them or avoid them.

Also, you could join us here: https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=1088438

The group is called Talkative and Friendly Games, but I’m not that talkative myself when playing, and so far, I’ve never had the feeling that people there are upset if you’re “just” friendly.

Edit: the games in this group are played in regular mode, not in friendly mode.

I think there is an option in these browser extensions to hide Elo but I am not sure. https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30509

Other than that, as was pointed out, the normal mode is the non-ranked casual mode. The ranked mode is supposed to be the Arena mode, and we have tournaments, too. Just because there is a rating in the normal mode, it doesn't mean it is supposed a meaningful ranking. The Elo value is just a very rough ballpark of a player's skill level. It is useful for finding good match-ups and it is also quite useful to know how skillful/experienced your opponent is at the beginning of a game, it sets the expectations right on how the game is going to be.