Should Arena players be idle?

[GreenP55]

Question. Should there be a requirement to play in the Arena mode to some agreed frequency?
It is March 24 and six of the top ten in Arena Backgammon have not played Arena mode this month, (for some, more than a month). It's like the top spot is a number - not a player. If the season ended now, the season champs ELO would be 196. That doesn't even rank as a strong player.

The current system encourages players to play heavily early in the season and if they score big then stop playing in Arena.

To help ensure an active player community and a vigorous Arena championship competition a simple fix would be to deduct 10 - 15 Arena points for any period where a player was idle for the prescribed period, (say 10 days?). Maybe Joker privilege's could be used to extend that time, (we might start to use our Jokers!!). A penny for your thoughts.

[euklid314]

Your proposal is valid.

The situation at the moment is, that you can only reach top spots after having a longer streak of wins.

Since Backgammon is very volatile (top players will move 300+ elo points up and down) you tend to stop if you just had a streak of say 15 wins with only 2 losses and reached arena top 10. That is very understandable...

[GreenP55]

I understand why players stop playing Arena. My last three losses cost me 82 points. My last three wins earned me 23 points. The top player in Arena is 40 points clear of the number 2 - why throw that away by playing? And as more strong players go idle the average ELO of the players left goes down - making it even harder to climb the Arena ladder.

But the same players who have gone idle in Arena are still participating in Tournaments and simple games so Arena is NOT where you find the best players. Maybe the Matchplay version will fix this. Maybe Arena should be mothballed and a new scoring system based on tournament play throughout the season should be applied. Or maybe we should be required to play in Arena to some minimum level - like once a week.

[Ancutz19]

Lately many players are using this "idle" or disconnect and reconnect at the beginning of the game. I understand once, twice, but really, every game? I don't know what the connection is between these and luck in doubles, but it's starting to annoy me and make me enter less often at this game.

[BackGa]

I understand why players stop playing Arena. My last three losses cost me 82 points. My last three wins earned me 23 points. The top player in Arena is 40 points clear of the number 2 - why throw that away by playing? And as more strong players go idle the average ELO of the players left goes down - making it even harder to climb the Arena ladder.

But the same players who have gone idle in Arena are still participating in Tournaments and simple games so Arena is NOT where you find the best players. Maybe the Matchplay version will fix this. Maybe Arena should be mothballed and a new scoring system based on tournament play throughout the season should be applied. Or maybe we should be required to play in Arena to some minimum level - like once a week.

I totally agree with you and also respect leader's decision not to play to keeping first place.

The point calculation system makes us yo-yo in ranking. It's part of arena which I see as gladiators in the coliseum but, since we don't chose opponents, is it normal that the points earned or lost are based on this random opponent ranking?

[Waikirikiri]

In another online gaming system players are marked "on leave" if they haven't played for 15 days.
An "on leave" player maintains their points total, but doesn't appear in the points table.

Could BGA have an "on holiday" system for the Arena where players who haven't played for 14 days are not listed in the Arena standings?

[dschingis27]

This has been suggested, discussed, voted on, and declined.
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 38#p114638