Tournaments recent & future updates

[sourisdudesert]

In 2017, we are in the process of making tournaments on BGA way more important than now.

Recently we improved the following :

• When playing a tournament game, you have by default a view on the tournament page during the game, just below your game in progress. This view can be refreshed, and give you an overview of the tournament in progress when you are playing a tournament game.
• When you quit a tournament game, you are now redirected to the tournament page instead of the game lobby, so you can check the latest results, see what your next game will be, and so on.
• To join a tournament for a given game, you now need to reach 100 ELO.

The latest change confuse some of you some here's are some words of explanation :

• With the new ELO update, players below 100 ELO are "apprentice" that cannot lose ELO. Only 2-4 victories are needed to reach 100 ELO, and you cannot go below afterwards.
• With this change, we avoid the situation where a player register on BGA, then register on all tournaments, then leave BGA forever. This should not be allowed.
• In addition, we want to have a reward for you when you reach 100 ELO, and this reward is that now you are a "competitive player" who can participate to tournament. By the way, even in real life you don't participate to tournaments before having played some games ...

However, some of you ask to organize tournaments for some specific players (ex : friends) who may be beginners/apprentice, so we changed the following today :

• Tournament creators can always join a tournament they've created whatever the restrictions.
• Those who are invited by a tournament creator to join a tournament can always join a tournament whatever the restrictions.

Our plan for the rest of the year are for example :

• To upgrade the visibility and prestige of some tournaments that respect some criteria (in particular : created soon enough so everyone can knows about it), by giving them an "official" badge.
• Latest official tournaments winners will have a dedicated "hall of fame" section for each game.
• 3+ games tournaments.

[turtler7]

Thank you for your improvements and considerations! Tournaments are a very important part of play to me not for the prestige or the end results but because games can be played turn based with a faster player clock and matching against some of the same players makes a better social atmosphere even than rematching the same players in a regular match. It also makes it so that it is easy for other players to include themselves into these social cliques and be involved with groups by simply joining open tournaments.

I feel like most gamers tend to be introverts and have difficulty putting themselves out there to talk with established player groups and try to find how they fit in with different gaming knowledge/background. I know that I personally find it very difficult to even go to a board game club and get into a group. I usually just setup a game I can teach and hope others approach me. It is difficult to be included when many games being setup have an established group at the max player count, are for unfamiliar games featuring mechanics I do not necessarily prefer, and these other players are very focused on learning/explaining/playing the games in progress and do not notice a new person in the small crowd who would want to be part of things. This website has been a wonderful find for me as it fixes many of these personality shortcomings. Tournaments in particular are the best I have found for upgrading the social environment without the need to "force" conversations to start.

Allowing invitations to specific players regardless of ELO fixes many issues I was having with players who have just learned games that are played less than they deserve and can more easily match in tournament play than in regular play. I want to do what I can to encourage the playerbase to learn and play games that deserve the attention.

I am extremely looking forward to 3+ tournaments as many games have a gang up on leader (not quite kingmaker) balancing mechanic to keep early luck from dominating an entire match and forcing those players to adapt their strategies.

Thank you again!

[turtler7]

Would it be possible either to allow a tournament to be set as a repeat weekly, monthly, or any kind of stored template?

[ollyfish2002]

Hello
Would be possible to check if a player in a tournament has still an open account ?
We have this problem in a Quoridor Swiss Tournament where a player has a closed account.
https://fr.boardgamearena.com/#!tournament?id=9668
We all have to wait the total time for each next step and maybe he can win the trophy...
Could it be possible to make this player quit all open games or tournaments ?
Thanks

[RobertBr]

These seem very sensible changes. Has any further thought been given to 3+ player tournaments?

[ollyfish2002]

Hello
A suggestion in the tournament page :
As we have filters now, could it be possible to store our preferences for the tournament page ?
I have to set each time with the same settings (tournaments I am interested).
Thanks

[Jest Phulin]

I also would like tournaments with more than 2 people at a table -- many games are more enjoyable at this level.

[gameypoehler]

Hello
A suggestion in the tournament page :
As we have filters now, could it be possible to store our preferences for the tournament page ?
I have to set each time with the same settings (tournaments I am interested).
Thanks

+1

I'd also love if we could either add a filter which only shows tournaments I am NOT already signed up for or have the tournaments I have signed up for indicated in some way when searching through all tournaments. I frequently have to click into tournaments that I'm interested in to see if I've already signed up for them or not.

[KaosBombix]

Is it posible to go on the page of a tournament with a right click please? A lot of players could earn a lot of time